John

For instance, it says, "providence from above, from the leading things as from a head, pervades all, as the ointment," it says, "that comes down upon the beard of Aaron and upon the hem of his garment" (that is, of the great high priest, "through whom all things came to be, and without him not one thing came to be") — not into the adorning of the body, but, outside the people, philosophy, like a garment.

For I have heard from God — who for this very reason consented to His sojourn in the flesh, that by examples of what we ought to do He might give rule to our life, and by His own voice announce to us the gospel of the kingdom — that "By this shall all know that you are My disciples, if you love one another";

And therefore, because he had called the Word of God "God," lest he should aid the presumption of the adversaries, as though John had seen the Father himself, in order to distinguish between the invisible Father and the visible Son, he adds further out of abundance:

Thus, ever forgetting the things behind, and reaching out toward the things before, watching, pursue the prize of the upward calling of God in Christ Jesus, as the divine Apostle exhorts, saying, 'Let us not lose heart;

or because the Lord himself, sententiously and definitively, pronounced, "That which is born in the flesh is flesh, because it is born of flesh.

The hour shall come, he says, when the true worshippers shall worship the Father in spirit and in truth.

for it was "before the morning star," and "in the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.

John xii 20.

This lot of the body the Lord too expressed, when, clothed in that very substance, He said, "Destroy this temple, and I in three days will raise it up again.

But if the same Wisdom is the Word of God — in the sense of Wisdom, and without which nothing was made, as also nothing was disposed without Wisdom — what kind of thing is it that, for the Son of God, the only-begotten and first-begotten Word, anything should have been more ancient than the Father, and in this way surely more nobly born?

But also otherwise the Samaritans were always self-pleasing concerning the mountains and wells of their fathers — as in the gospel of John that Samaritan woman in colloquy with the Lord at the well:

"Destroy this temple, and I will raise it up in three days.

and the word of the pure Gospel:

’ Did the Jews, then, ask John out of the Pythagorean opinion, ‘Are you Elias?

More deeply John says, "Little children, keep yourselves from idols!

when the Holy Spirit comes, he will lead you into all truth," he sufficiently signified that the Spirit would bring forward such things as might both be reckoned new, as never published before, and at some time burdensome, as being for that reason not yet published.