The Greeks at the Feast

In the days before the Passion, “certain Greeks” who had come up to worship at the feast approach Philip with the request “Sir, we would see Jesus,” and Philip, joining Andrew, brings them to the Lord (John 12:20–22). This file exegetes the scene: who the Greeks were, why they came to Philip, the two apostles’ bringing of the request, and the way the coming of the Greeks triggers the Lord’s declaration that “the hour is come, that the Son of man should be glorified” (John 12:23) — the hinge of the Fourth Gospel toward the Cross.

Tradition: Pan-Orthodox (Apostle)

“We Would See Jesus”

The scene falls immediately after the triumphal entry into Jerusalem, when the Pharisees have just said, in dismay, “behold, the world is gone after him” (John 12:19) — and the very next words show the world coming: “And there were certain Greeks among them that came up to worship at the feast: the same came therefore to Philip, which was of Bethsaida of Galilee, and desired him, saying, Sir, we would see Jesus” (John 12:20–21; KJV). The Evangelist’s placement is deliberate: the Pharisees’ “the world is gone after him” is answered at once by Gentiles seeking the Lord. The request is simple and weighty — “Sir [Kyrie], we would see Jesus” — and it is the last approach made to Jesus by outsiders before the Passion begins.

The “Greeks” (Greek Hellēnes) are most probably not Greek-speaking Jews of the Diaspora (those John usually calls Hellēnistai) but Gentiles — either proselytes who had attached themselves to the synagogue or “God-fearers” who worshipped the God of Israel without full conversion — who had “come up to worship at the feast” of Passover (John 12:20). The court of the Gentiles in the Temple was open to such worshippers, and their presence at the feast is wholly plausible (Brown, John I–XII, 1966, on 12:20). They are seekers from outside Israel, drawn toward the Messiah of the Jews.

Why They Came to Philip

That the Greeks approach Philip is one of the small, telling touches of the Fourth Gospel. The Evangelist takes care to add “which was of Bethsaida of Galilee” (John 12:21) — Galilee of the Gentiles, the partly Hellenized northern region — and Philip, like Andrew, bears a Greek name (see Philip of Bethsaida). It is natural, the tradition and many commentators observe, that Greek-speaking seekers would turn to the disciples whose names and origin marked them as approachable across the Jewish-Gentile line (Keener, John, 2003, on 12:20–22). Philip is, in John, twice the disciple others come to — here, and in the call of Nathanael, where it is Philip who fetches the seeker (John 1:45–46). The realist who counts the loaves is also the accessible one to whom outsiders bring their request.

The Two Apostles and the Bringing

Philip does not act alone. “Philip cometh and telleth Andrew: and again Andrew and Philip tell Jesus” (John 12:22; KJV). The pairing of Philip and Andrew recalls the feeding of the five thousand, where the same two disciples together stated the impossibility of the situation (John 6:5–9; see Come and See); both are men of Bethsaida (John 1:44), and both bear Greek names. Here their joint action is not hesitation but the proper bringing of seekers to the Lord — the same office Philip exercised toward Nathanael with “Come and see.” The two apostles are the bridge by which the Greeks reach Christ.

The Hour Is Come

The Lord’s response does not address the Greeks directly; it opens out into the great declaration of the Gospel’s turning point: “And Jesus answered them, saying, The hour is come, that the Son of man should be glorified. Verily, verily, I say unto you, Except a corn of wheat fall into the ground and die, it abideth alone: but if it die, it bringeth forth much fruit” (John 12:23–24; KJV). Throughout John, the “hour” of Jesus has “not yet come” (John 2:4; 7:30; 8:20); now, at the approach of the Gentiles, it has. The coming of the Greeks is the sign that the time of the Cross — the grain of wheat falling into the earth — has arrived, the death by which the Lord will “draw all men” unto Himself (John 12:32). Chrysostom marks the connection: the desire of the Gentiles to see Him is the token that the harvest of the nations is at hand, which the Lord’s death and exaltation will gather in (Chrysostom, Homilies on John 66; NPNF I/14).

The Gospel does not record whether the Greeks were actually brought into the Lord’s presence, or what they saw; the narrative passes from their request to the Lord’s discourse on His glorification and death. This silence is itself part of the scene’s meaning: the seeing of Jesus that the Greeks asked for would be granted not in a private audience before the Passion but in the Cross lifted up and the gospel preached to the nations after it. The “hour” their coming announced is the hour in which the whole world would come to see Him.

The Apostle at the Threshold

In this last of his Gospel scenes, Philip stands at a threshold. He is the disciple to whom the first Gentile seekers turn, and through whom — with Andrew — they are brought to the Lord at the very moment the Cross comes into view. The Church has long read the scene as a foreshadowing of the mission to the nations, and has read it, fittingly, back through Philip’s own later tradition of an apostolate among the Greek-speaking cities of Phrygia (see The Bridge to the Nations and The Mission). But the canonical scene itself is restrained: it is a sign, a request, a hinge — the world beginning to come, and the hour of glory declared.

See Also

References

  • The Holy Bible, Authorized (King James) Version and Revised Standard Version. (John 12:19–24, 32.)
  • John Chrysostom. Homilies on the Gospel of St. John 66. 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 coming of the Greeks; Gentiles, proselytes, God-fearers.)
  • Keener, Craig S. The Gospel of John: A Commentary. 2 vols. Peabody: Hendrickson, 2003. (On John 12:20–22.)