You sent unto John, and he bore witness unto the truth.
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Cornelius a Lapide
AD 1637
Ye sent unto John , &c. Ye sent messengers to him as a man in your estimation holy, and worthy of all credit, to ask him if he were the Messias. John answered that not Hebrews , but I, am the Messias. This testimony he gave not out of friendship, or favour to Me, but to the truth. For that he would testify to nothing but the truth, ye yourselves thought, when ye were willing to receive him as the Messiah. Therefore ye cannot reject his testimony, says Euthymius.
As we have just affirmed that it is disgraceful, and not without share of the uttermost folly, that any one should be seen as an admirer of his own excellencies, even though he should by reason of exceeding virtue escape untruth: so it is an absurdity cognate (so to say) and akin to this, that any not called upon to bear witness to any thing, should of their own accord appear before the judges or those who wish to enquire. For such an one would seem (and that justly) not altogether to be anxious to tell the truth, but rather to be over-eager to give his testimony, to make known not what the nature of the fact is, but rather his own account of it. Most skilfully then, yea rather as God, doth our Lord Jesus Christ, overturning beforehand the charge of the Pharisees in regard to this, say, YE have sent unto John: not of his own accord (says He) does the Baptist come to give his testimony to Me, he is clear from any charge of this: he gave free testimony; YE sent to ask John, and he hath b...
Yet if Your witness be not true, how sayest Thou, I know that the testimony of John is true, and that he has borne witness to the truth? And do you see (O man) how clear it hence is, that the expression, My witness is not true, was addressed to their secret thoughts?
2. What then, says some one, if John bore witness partially. That the Jews might not assert this, see how He removes this suspicion. For He said not, John testified of Me, but, You first sent to John, and you would not have sent had ye not deemed him trustworthy. Nay, what is more, they had sent not to ask him about Christ, but about himself, and the man whom they deemed trustworthy in what related to himself they would much more deem so in what related to another. For it is, so to speak, the nature of us all not to give so much credit to those who speak of themselves as to those who speak of others; yet him they deemed so trustworthy as not to require even concerning himself any other testimony. For they who were sent s...
