52, 53. The Jews accuse Him of preferring Himself to Abraham and the prophets, to which He replies—

54. Respondit Iesus: Si ego glorifico, meipsum, gloria mea nihil est: est Pater meus, qui glorificat me, quem vos dicitis quia Deus vester est.54. Jesus answered: If I glorify myself, my glory is nothing. It is my Father that glorifieth me, of whom you say that he is your God.

54. If I glorify Myself, let it go for nought; it is My Father, &c.

55. Et non cognovistis eum. Ego autem novi eum: et si dixero quia non scio eum, ero similis vobis, mendax. Sed scio eum, et sermonem eius servo.55. And you have not known him, but I know him. And if I shall say that I know him not, I shall be like to you, a liar. But I do know him, and do keep his word.

55. The Jews knew not the Father as the Father of Christ; moreover, they knew Him not at all with a practical knowledge so as to serve Him.

56. Abraham pater vester exultavit ut videret diem meum: vidit, et gavisus est.56. Abraham your father rejoiced that he might see my day: he saw it, and was glad.

56. Abraham your father rejoiced, &c. He leaves it to be inferred that He, being the object of Abraham's hope and joy, is greater than Abraham, and still not opposed to him. Our Lord's day here is not the eternal existence of the Son, nor the day of His death, nor Himself, the day-star of justice, but the day for which all the ancient just had so long prayed and sighed: “drop down dew, ye heavens, from above, and let the clouds rain the just” (Is. xlv. 8), the day or time of Christ's mortal life on earth. Rejoiced that he might see (ἵνα ἴδη). Most probably the meaning is, that Abraham, after God had revealed to him that the Messias was to be born of his seed, hoped and yearned in joyful confidence that he might see Christ on earth. He saw it, and was glad. It would seem from these words that Abraham saw in the way in which he had yearned to see. And since he cannot have yearned to see Christ's day merely by faith, for he already saw it by faith; hence there must be question here of some other vision. Mald., A Lap., and most commentators hold that Abraham's mental vision was elevated by God, so that from limbo he saw and knew that Christ was on earth just as the angels and saints in heaven know what happens on earth and in hell. The aorist tenses in the Greek (εἶδεν καὶ ἐχάρη), with their past definite signification, are not easily reconciled with this view, and hence others prefer to suppose that there is reference to some very special revelation made to Abraham during his life on earth, in which he saw with something more than the vision of ordinary faith the time and various circumstances of Christ's mortal life (compare Heb. xi. 13).

57. Dixerunt ergo Iudaei ad eum: Quinquaginta annos nondum habes, et Abraham vidisti?57. The Jews therefore said to him: Thou art not yet fifty years old, and hast thou seen Abraham?

57. In saying Christ was not yet fifty years of age, they take an age about which there could be no dispute, as if they said: at the very outside Thou art not yet fifty years old, and hast Thou seen Abraham? The common opinion is that Christ died in his thirty-fourth year, though, strange to say, St. Irenæus held the singular view that he lived to be fifty. (Iren., Adv. Haer., ii. 39, 40.)

58. Dixit eis Iesus: Amen, amen dico vobis, antequam Abraham fieret, ego sum.58. Jesus said to them: Amen, amen, I say to you, before Abraham was made, I am.