=8. All whosoever came before me are thieves and robbers.= This verse is declared by Tholuck to be “one of the most difficult sentences in the N. T.” If _before_ (πρό) be taken as an adverb of time, as is generally done, then Christ’s declaration is that all religious teachers who preceded him were thieves and robbers, and this would on its face include the long line of prophets from Moses to Malachi; or if the sentence is modified, as some propose, by the fact that the verb is in the present tense, _are_ thieves and robbers, so that Christ embraces only the then living teachers, still this would include such instructors as Gamaliel and Nicodemus, if not John the Baptist, who belonged to that generation. The qualification of this, by the supposition that Christ did not include true teachers but only the false, not only falsifies his declaration which points out the way in which the true may be distinguished from the false, but reduces the sentence to a truism, viz., All false religious teachers who came before me, are thieves and robbers, _i. e._, teachers of falsehood, depriving men of the truth. The other proposed qualification, All who have come claiming to be Messiah, are thieves, etc., not only adds an important qualification to Christ’s declaration, but is historically an anachronism, inasmuch as there is no historical evidence that any false Messiah preceded the time of Christ. I am inclined, therefore, to take _before_ (πρό) as an adverb signifying precedence in rank or authority, as it does in Col. 1:17, James 5:12, and 1 Pet. 4:8, and to understand the passage, _All whosoever come claiming precedence above me are thieves and robbers_. The verb _come_ (ἦλθον) is in the aorist tense, and does not necessarily indicate a coming in the past only, but would be properly used for the enunciation of a general principle. The prophets of the O. T. claimed no such precedence above Christ; on the contrary, they were but his heralds; and John the Baptist distinctly disavowed such precedence (Matt. 3:14; chaps. 1:26, 27; 3:30). The Pharisees, on the other hand, denied Christ’s right to teach, because he did not belong to their schools (ch. 7:15), and in their conference with the blind man had put themselves above Christ (ch. 9:16, 24). Where there is no general agreement among scholars, I hesitate to offer an interpretation which differs from all, but this appears to me on the whole more consistent with the context, and with the teaching of the N. T. elsewhere, than any other, and not inconsistent with the original. If this be a correct interpretation, Christ’s claim here is directly antagonistic to those who would make an eclectic religion, by selecting truth from all the world’s religious teachers, including Christ among the rest. For he declares all to be robbing the world of truth, not imparting it, who deny him the pre-eminent rank as a religious teacher. On the other hand, he does not stigmatize genuine moral teachers, such as Buddha or