Jesus answered them, and said,
My doctrine is not mine, but his that sent me.
Read Chapter 7
Clement Of Alexandria
AD 215
"And my doctrine is not Mine "saith the Lord, "but the Father's which sent me. "And of those who steal He says: "But he that speaketh of himself, seeketh his own glory."
Jesus answered, &c. My doctrines are not My inventions nor the result of My study. They did not primarily and originally proceed from Me, but from God the Father. Hebrews , as I am God, communicated to Me His own omniscience, But, as I am Prayer of Manasseh , He gave and infused into Me His own Blessed knowledge of all things, according to that of Isaiah 11:2. "The Spirit of the Lord shall rest upon Him," &c. So S. Chrysostom and others, who observe that in this very way Christ implies that He is God: as if He said, "I together with the Divine Essence have derived all My omniscience and doctrine from the Father." As S. Augustine says (Tract29), "What is the doctrine of the Father, but the Word of the Father? Christ Himself, therefore, is the doctrine of the Father, if He is the Word of the Father. But because a Word cannot be of no one, but of some one, He called Himself His own doctrine, and yet not His own, because He is the Word of the Father. For what is so much thine as thyself? ...
We shall find that indeed true that is written by one of the wise men, The Spirit of the Lord hath filled the world, and the ear of hearing heareth all things. But to those who of utter folly, yea rather of blasphemy, suppose that ought they utter will escape the Divine Mind, the Godlike Psalmist says, Understand, ye brutish among the people, and ye fools, when will ye be wise? He that planted the ear, heareth He not? for how could it possibly happen that He should not surely hear all things, who implanteth the sense of hearing into them that were made by Him?
See therefore in this too again that the Lord is by Nature God. For the secret whispers of the Jews in the crowd He is not ignorant of; He receives them into His Ears in God-befitting way, albeit from fear of the rulers they say nothing openly concerning Him. And when on one occasion certain of those who had rushed together into the temple, marvelled and were reasoning (as is like) or gently saying one to another, How knoweth ...
