This is he of whom I said, After me comes a man who is preferred before me: for he was before me.
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Cyril of Alexandria
AD 444
He leads the hearers to remembrance of his words, and yields to Christ the superiority in glory, accomplishing the work, not of love, but rather of truth and necessity. For the creature is subject, even if it willeth not, to the Creator? the bond to the Lord, the supplied to the Giver. But in what manner Christ was after John, but preferred before him, for He was before him, as himself confesseth, we have spoken sufficiently in what has preceded.
2. Do you see here also how he interprets the word before? For having called Him Lamb, and that He takes away the sin of the world, then he says that He is preferred before me, for He was before me; declaring that this is the before, the taking upon Him the sins of the world, and the baptizing with the Holy Ghost. For my coming had no farther object than to proclaim the common Benefactor of the world, and to afford the baptism of water; but His was to cleanse all men, and to give them the power of the Comforter. He is preferred before me, that is to say, has appeared brighter than I, because He was before me. Let those who have admitted the madness of Paul of Samosata be ashamed when they withstand so manifest a truth.
