14. The festival lasted for eight days, so that this would be the fourth or fifth day.
| 15. Et mirabantur Iudaei, dicentes: Quomodo hic litteras scit, cum non didicerit? | 15. And the Jews wondered, saying: How doth this man know letters, having never learned? |
15. From this verse it is plain that Christ had never attended any of the Jewish schools, where the Scriptures (γράμματα) were explained.
| 16. Respondit eis Iesus, et dixit: Mea doctrina non est mea, sed eius qui misit me. | 16. Jesus answered them and said: My doctrine is not mine, but his that sent me. |
16. The sense is: The doctrine I preach has not been excogitated by Me; I have received it from My Father. As man, Christ had received His knowledge through the beatific vision, and by infusion into His human soul, and as God, He had received it from the Father from all eternity.
| 17. Si quis voluerit voluntatem eius facere, cognoscet de doctrina utrum ex Deo sit, an ego a meipso loquar. | 17. If any man will do the will of him: he shall know of the doctrine, whether it be of God, or whether I speak of myself. |
| 18. Qui a semetipso loquitur, gloriam propriam quaerit: qui autem quaerit gloriam eius qui misit eum, hic verax est, et iniustitia in illo non est. | 18. He that speaketh of himself, seeketh his own glory: but he that seeketh the glory of him that sent him, he is true, and there is no injustice in him. |
17, 18. In proof that His doctrine is from God, He appeals to two arguments:—(1) If they will only follow the will of God, and believe, experience will teach them that His doctrine is divine. (2) The fact that He seeks not His own glory, but the glory of the Father, is a proof that His doctrine is the doctrine of the Father, and, therefore a proof that He is veracious, and does not deceive (injustitia in illo non est). This second argument, as Mald. points out, is based upon what does, not upon what should, happen among men. When men preach doctrines of their own invention, they generally seek their own glory.
| 19. Nonne Moyses dedit vobis legem: et nemo ex vobis facit legem? | 19. Did not Moses give you the law, and yet none of you keepeth the law? |
| 20. Quid me quaeritis interficere? Respondit turba, et dixit: Daemonium habes: quis te quaerit interficere? | 20. Why seek you to kill me? The multitude answered and said: Thou hast a devil; who seeketh to kill thee? |
19, 20. Most probably Christ begins here to defend Himself against the charge of violating the Sabbath, which the Jews had brought against Him on a former occasion (v. 16, 18), [pg 140] and which they still remembered against Him.
He uses an “argumentum ad hominem”: You do not keep the law yourselves, why then seek to kill Me, even for what you allege to be a violation of it? Some among the crowd were even then anxious to kill Jesus, as His words prove, and to these He directs His words; but there were many present who had no such intention, and some of these reply, Thou hast a devil. They may have meant that He was possessed, or simply that He was raving, out of His senses.