O great unlearning and mind withered unto unbelief and looking to only wrangling! For while our Saviour Christ consenteth and saith openly, I know that ye are Abraham's seed, they persist in the same, and as though one were holding out and contradicting and saying that they were not of Abraham's seed after the flesh, they again say, Our father is Abraham, and blush not going oft through the same words, who think that they ought not to yield even to Battus, but are but most excellent emulators of that man's babbling. But perchance they had some most unreasoning plea for this, and what, we will tell. For when the Lord says, I speak that which I have seen with My Father, they did not imagine that He hereby intended God the Father, but thought that He spoke of either the righteous Joseph, or some other of those on the earth, ridiculing and deeming and thinking exceeding little things of Him. For the holy Virgin conceived in her womb the Divine Babe, not of marriage but of the Holy Ghost, a...
He here repeatedly handles their murderous intention, and makes mention of Abraham. And this He does desiring to draw off their attention from this relationship, and to take away their excessive boasting, and also to persuade them no longer to rest their hopes of salvation in Abraham, nor in the relationship which is according to nature, but in that which is according to the will. For what hindered their coming to Christ was this, their deeming that relationship to be sufficient for them to salvation. But what is the truth of which He speaks? That He is equal with the Father. For it was on this account that the Jews sought to slay Him; and He says,
You seek to kill Me because I have told you the truth, which I have heard of My Father.
To show that these things are not opposed to the Father, He again betakes Himself to Him. They say unto Him,
