Tractates on the Gospel of John - Vol. 3

YOU REMEMBER, my beloved people, that in the previous sermons ^1. it was both read in the Gospel and discussed by us, as well as we could, that the Lord Jesus went up to the festival day as if secretly, not because he feared that he who had the power not to be arrested, might be arrested, but that he might signify even on the very festival day which was celebrated by the Jews that he was hidden and that the mystery [of it] was his own.

(2) In today's reading what was accounted timidity appeared as power, for he was speaking openly on the festival day so that the crowds wondered and said what we heard when the reading was read: "Is not this the one whom they were seeking to kill? And behold, he speaks openly and they say nothing to him. Can it be that the rulers have really come to know that this is the Christ? They who knew with what ferocity he was sought wondered by what power he was not arrested. Then, not fully understanding his power, they thought that it was the knowledge of the rulers, that they had themselves come to know that he was the Christ, and therefore they spared him whom they had sought so very much to kill.

2. Then those very people, who had said among themselves, "Can it be that the rulers have really come to know that this is the Christ?", proposed to themselves a problem by which it seemed to them that he was not the Christ; for they said in addition, "Yet we know where this man is from; but when the Christ comes, no one knows where he is from."

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