Come and See

Two scenes that frame Philip’s character in the Gospel of John: his call and his calling of Nathanael in the first chapter — “Follow me” spoken to him, and “Come and see” spoken by him (John 1:43–46) — and the testing of him before the feeding of the five thousand, where he answers the Lord’s question with a calculation (John 6:5–7). Together they show Philip as the disciple who, once found, immediately finds another, and as the practical reckoner whom the Lord deliberately proves.

Tradition: Pan-Orthodox (Apostle)

“Follow Me”

Philip’s call comes on the fourth day of the Fourth Gospel’s opening week, as the Lord moves from the Jordan toward Galilee: “The day following Jesus would go forth into Galilee, and findeth Philip, and saith unto him, Follow me” (John 1:43; KJV). The wording is significant. The two disciples of the Baptist (one of them Andrew) had come to Jesus on their own initiative the day before, and Andrew had then brought Peter (John 1:35–42); but Philip is sought out — “Jesus . . . findeth Philip” — and called with the bare imperative “Follow me,” the same word the Lord will later speak to the rich young ruler and, at the end, again to Peter (John 21:19, 22). Philip is thus among the very first disciples, and one of the few in John whom the Lord summons directly rather than through a human intermediary. The Evangelist has just noted that Philip “was of Bethsaida, the city of Andrew and Peter” (John 1:44), binding him into the Galilean circle from which the first disciples were drawn (see Philip of Bethsaida).

The patristic tradition lingers on this directness. Chrysostom observes that Philip, though called by Christ, was prepared by his own searching of the Scriptures, so that when he found the Lord he could at once say “We have found him, of whom Moses in the law, and the prophets, did write” — the call met a man already looking (Chrysostom, Homilies on John 20; NPNF I/14). The Lord finds those who, in their measure, are already seeking.

“Come and See”

Philip’s response to being found is to find another. “Philip findeth Nathanael, and saith unto him, We have found him, of whom Moses in the law, and the prophets, did write, Jesus of Nazareth, the son of Joseph” (John 1:45; KJV). Nathanael’s reply is the famous skeptical retort: “Can there any good thing come out of Nazareth?” (John 1:46). And Philip answers not with argument but with invitation: “Come and see.” The phrase echoes the Lord’s own “Come and see” to the first two disciples a few verses earlier (John 1:39), and it becomes, in the Church’s reading, the model of evangelism: not the winning of an argument but the bringing of a seeker into the Lord’s presence, where Christ Himself does the rest — for Nathanael, no sooner come, is met with “Behold an Israelite indeed, in whom is no guile!” and is won (John 1:47–49). Chrysostom draws the lesson plainly: Philip “did not enter into a long argument . . . but brought him to the very fountain of instruction,” knowing that once Nathanael saw and heard Christ he would not let go (Chrysostom, Homilies on John 20; NPNF I/14). The structure of John 1 — Andrew finds Peter, the Lord finds Philip, Philip finds Nathanael — makes Philip a link in the founding chain of the Church’s mission, one disciple drawing another (see The Bridge to the Nations).

The Nathanael whom Philip brings is, in the long tradition of the Church, identified with Bartholomew — the apostle paired with Philip in three of the four lists of the Twelve (Matt 10:3; Mark 3:18; Luke 6:14) and, in the later tradition, his missionary companion at Hierapolis (see The Companions). [Disputed: the identification of the Nathanael of John 1:45–46 with the Apostle Bartholomew is a longstanding tradition (already implied by the Synoptic pairing of Philip and Bartholomew and the absence of Nathanael from the Synoptic lists) and is widely held, but it is an inference, not a statement of the text; some scholars hold Nathanael to be a distinct disciple not numbered among the Twelve.]

The Testing Before the Feeding

Philip’s second scene is set on the far side of the Sea of Galilee, before the feeding of the five thousand. Seeing the great crowd, “Jesus . . . saith unto Philip, Whence shall we buy bread, that these may eat?” — and the Evangelist immediately tells us why: “And this he said to prove him: for he himself knew what he would do” (John 6:5–6; KJV). The question is a deliberate test (Greek peirazōn, “testing/proving”), and only John, among the four accounts of the feeding, records that the Lord directed it to Philip by name. Philip’s answer is the answer of a practical, reckoning man: “Two hundred pennyworth of bread is not sufficient for them, that every one of them may take a little” (John 6:7). Two hundred denarii — the better part of a year’s wages for a laborer — would not buy enough for so much as a morsel apiece. Philip sees the situation exactly and measures it exactly; what he does not yet see is the One who stands before him, for whom the arithmetic of scarcity does not bind.

The Fathers read the test as pedagogical, not punitive. Chrysostom holds that the Lord questioned Philip “to lead him to a clearer faith” — to make him aware of the impossibility, so that the miracle, when it came, would strike the deeper and the disciple would learn that the answer to “whence?” is not a sum of money but the power of God (Chrysostom, Homilies on John 42; NPNF I/14). Andrew, in the same scene, points to the boy with five loaves and two fishes but adds, “what are they among so many?” (John 6:9) — and so the two practical disciples together state the impossibility that the Lord is about to overturn. Philip’s honesty is not faithlessness; it is the realism that the miracle transfigures.

Philip the Reckoner

Across these scenes a single, consistent disciple appears. Philip is the man who, found by the Lord, at once goes to find another and brings him with the words “Come and see”; and he is the man who, asked where bread is to be found for a multitude, answers with the true and sobering sum. He is neither the impetuous Peter nor the doubting Thomas nor the loved disciple John; he is the practical seeker, the one who counts the cost and the one who brings others to be counted in. This realism is the very quality the Lord engages and stretches — in the test of John 6, and again, supremely, in the longing of John 14, where Philip’s “show us the Father” draws out the Gospel’s clearest word on the vision of God in the Son (see Show Us the Father).

See Also

References

  • The Holy Bible, Authorized (King James) Version and Revised Standard Version. (John 1:39–49; 6:1–13.)
  • John Chrysostom. Homilies on the Gospel of St. John 20, 42, 43. Trans. Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Series I, Vol. 14. Buffalo: Christian Literature Company, 1889.
  • Brown, Raymond E. The Gospel According to John (I–XII). Anchor Bible 29. New York: Doubleday, 1966. (The call narratives of John 1; the feeding of John 6.)
  • Keener, Craig S. The Gospel of John: A Commentary. 2 vols. Peabody: Hendrickson, 2003. (Philip in John 1 and 6; the testing motif.)