{"collection":"chr","html_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/browse/chr/ecf/009/0090280.htm","path":"chr/ecf/009/0090280.htm","source_url":"https://sacred-texts.com/chr/ecf/009/0090280.htm","text":"4. John Denies that He is Elijah or \u201cThe\u201d Prophet. Yet He Was \u201cA\u201d Prophet.\nNow let us consider John\u2019s second testimony. Jews from Jerusalem, 4832 kindred to John the Baptist, since he also belonged to a priestly race, send priests and levites to ask John who he is. In saying, \u201cI am not the Christ,\u201d he made a confession of the truth. The words are not, as one might suppose, a negation; for it is no negation to say, in the honour of Christ, that one is not Christ. The priests and levites sent from Jerusalem, having there heard in the first place that he is not the expected Messiah, put a question about the second great personage whom they expected, namely, Elijah, whether John were he, and he says he is not Elijah, and by his \u201cI am not\u201d makes a second confession of the truth. And, as many prophets had appeared in Israel, and one in particular was looked for according to the prophecy of Moses, who said, 4833 \u201cA prophet shall the Lord your God raise up to you of your brethren, like unto me, him shall ye hear; and it shall come to pass that every soul that shall not hear that prophet shall be destroyed from among the people,\u201d they, therefore, ask a third question, not whether he is a prophet, but whether he is the prophet. Now, they did not apply this p. 354 name to the Christ, but supposed the prophet to be a second figure beside the Christ. But John, on the contrary, who knew that He whose forerunner he was was both the Christ and the prophet thus foretold, answered \u201cNo;\u201d whereas, if they had asked if he was a prophet, he would have answered \u201cYes;\u201d 4834 for he was not unconscious that he was a prophet. In all these answers John\u2019s second testimony to Christ was not yet completed; he had still to give his questioners the answer they were to take back to those who sent them, and to declare himself in the terms of the prophecy of Isaiah, which says, \u201cThe voice of one crying in the wilderness, Prepare ye the way of the Lord.\u201d","title":"Ante-Nicene Fathers, Vol IX: Epistle to Gregory and Origen's Commentary on the Gospel of John.: Chapter IV","type":"page"}