2. Hic venit ad Iesum nocte, 2. This man came to Jesus by et dixit ei: Rabbi, scimus night, and said to him: Rabbi, quia a Deo venisti magister: we know that thou art come a nemo enim potest haec signa teacher from God: for no man facere quae tu facis, nisi can do these signs which thou fuerit Deus cum eo. dost, unless God be with him. 2. Because he believed in Jesus, he came; but because he feared the Jews, he came by night. *We know.* Nicodemus may have come in the name of several, to learn more about Jesus, or he may be merely alluding to the fact that some others were of the same belief. He professed his faith in Jesus as a heaven‐sent teacher, stating the nature of his belief. “Nicodemus estimates accurately, we may almost say with theological precision, the force of the evidence of the miracles of our Lord, if they were to be taken apart from other considerations which belonged to the same subject‐matter. The miracles _in themselves_ proved exactly that God was with Him; but if they were taken in conjunction with the witness of St. John the Baptist, with our Lord’s manner of working them, that is, _as one who was using His own power_, and with His way of speaking of Himself, and of God as His Father, they might have been enough to form the ground of a still higher faith concerning our Blessed Lord” (Coleridge, _Life of our Lord_, vol. i., page 256). 3. Respondit Iesus, et dixit 3. Jesus answered and said to ei: Amen, amen, dico tibi, him: Amen, amen, I say to nisi quis renatus fuerit thee, unless a man be born denuo, non potest videre again, he cannot see the regnum Dei. kingdom of God. 3. *Jesus answered.* This might merely mean that He went on to speak, the verb to answer being again and again found in this sense in the New Testament. Here, however, it may be used in its strict sense of replying to a question, for it seems to us extremely probable that a portion of the discourse leading up to the statement made in verse 3 is omitted by the Evangelist. It is highly improbable that the whole discourse between Christ and Nicodemus is here recorded, as it seems very unlikely that Nicodemus, after the trouble of coming specially to Christ by night, left Him, or would be allowed to leave, after the two or three minutes in which the discourse here reported was spoken. *Born again.* The Greek word ἄνωθενα, which is rendered “again,” may mean—(_a_) from above, or (_b_) again. The latter meaning, however, is more probable here, for so Nicodemus understood our Lord’s words (see verse 4): so, also S. Chrysostom, and nearly all the Latin fathers. Compare, too, Tit. iii. 5; 1 Pet. i. 23. The truth expressed in this verse is universal; whoever is born needs to be reborn in order to see (= “to enter into,” verse 5) the kingdom of God in Christ’s Church here, and in heaven hereafter.