ive ܪܒܬܐ“great” suggests that he was not only thinking of the twelve apostles whom Jesus sent out in Matthew 10:5–42 (partly quoted by John immediately afterwards in 3.1.3.i), but of the larger group of the 70 or 72 disciples whom Jesus dispatched to do missionary work according…

. Interestingly, however, in its biblical context, this passage has no connection to eschatology: in Matthew 10:5–42, Jesus dispatches his disciples and predicts to them the difficulty and enmity they are going to face when doing their missionary work. But John constructs a paral…

em et capilli capitis omnes numerati sunt. Nolite ergo timere, multis passeribus meliores vos estis (Matth. X, 28-31) .» Rememoramini ergo, fratres, eum qui [Col. 0655D] talem sustinuit a peccatoribus adversus semetipsum contradictionem, ut ne fatigemini animis vestris deficient…