But I know him: for I am from him, and he has sent me.
Read Chapter 7
Cornelius a Lapide
AD 1637
But I know Him, for I am from Him, and He hath sent Me. "Born," saith S. Augustine, "by divine and eternal generation, inasmuch as I am His own proper and natural Son:" and He sent Me "into the world by My Incarnation." "See," saith Theophylact, "the two natures in Christ set forth in this passage, for by His saying, "I am of Him," His Divine Substance is set forth; but His human when He says, "and He sent Me."" Christ here refutes them of Jerusalem, who excused themselves for not believing in Him, because they knew His parents, whereas no one was to know the parents of Christ. For He shows that they knew not either His Divine generation from the Father, nor His human generation, by having been Incarnate by the Holy Ghost of the Virgin Mary; and that this was no hindrance to their duty of believing in Him as the Messiah, even though His parentage were not known.
Ye have just said (He saith) When Christ cometh, no man knoweth whence He is. But since ye insist that ye hold this your opinion rightly, as being the truth, I agree to your words herein. For True is He of Whom I am, the Father, but He is not known of you. Since then (He says) ye search into the Mystery respecting Me in a manner most unadvised, but as is pleasing to yourselves, and from knowing Who and whence I am after the Flesh, dismiss from yourselves the duty of believing, do ye for this sole cause receive the faith, when ye find that ye understand not whence I am: for I am of the Father, Whom YE know not, since ye know not Him That is of Him, in Whom Alone the Father is to be seen. For he that hath seen the Son hath seen the Father, and he that knoweth the Son is not ignorant of Him that begat. All their quibbling therefore being by this taken from them, they are again taken in their malice, finding no longer any excuse for their unbelief, who have thrust away the knowledge throug...
Do you see how He continually seeks to prove the, I am not come of Myself, and, He that sent Me is true, striving not to be thought an enemy of God? And observe how great is the profit of the humility of His words; for, it says, after this many said,
