John 12:20–25

Verse 20. Gentiles … came up to adore. These either were proselytes who had been Gentiles, and now had embraced the Jewish law: or they were such among the Gentiles, who owned and served the one true God, as Cornelius did, (Acts, chapter 10) but did not submit themselves to circumcision, and all the other Jewish rites and ceremonies. These could only enter into that part of the temple, called the court of the Gentiles. Witham.

Verse 24. Unless the grain of wheat. The comparison is this, that as the seed must be changed, and corrupted in the ground, before it fructify, so the world would not be converted but by Christ’s death. Witham.—By this grain of corn our Saviour means himself, who was to die by the infidelity of the Jews, and be multiplied by the faith of the Gentiles. Saint Augustine tract. 51. in Joan.