'_They said therefore to Him, Who art thou?_' 'What kind of being dost thou claim to be, who pronouncest judgment upon us,--who tellest us that we are to die in our sins?' There is a mixture, it seems to me, of indignation and of curiosity in the question. They want Him to tell them what He is, and what His right is to censure them and prophesy death to them. The reply, according to our translators, was, '_The same which I said unto you from the beginning_.' I do not suppose they were satisfied with this rendering themselves, or that any one ever has been. Λαλεῖν is more properly to speak than to say. Λαλῶ must be the present tense, not the past. Yet I do not think we can better their version by giving, as some have done, a mystical force to the words τὴν ἀρχὴν; as if that was a name which Christ claimed for Himself. Some of the Gnostics, and some of the Fathers, no doubt, supposed that Christ is called The Beginning in the first chapter of this Gospel, as He is, undoubtedly, in the first chapter of the Apocalypse. But, were that so, I do not see what room there would be for this meaning here, or how the sentence could be construed if we introduced it. If we follow the order of the words, we may perhaps preserve the grammar of the sentence, and its connexion with the verses which follow, without deviating very widely from the signification which it conveyed to the minds of King James's translators. '_That in the beginning of which I am speaking to you. I have many things to speak and to judge concerning you. But He that sent me is true; and the things which I have heard from Him, those I speak to the world._' The answer may be either a direct one to the question, '_Who art thou?_' 'I have always been that Light of the world of which I am speaking now;' or the emphasis may be on the word '_speak_.' 'I am not speaking to you any different words from those which I have been always speaking to you. I am not pronouncing any judgment upon you which you have not heard pronounced in your consciences long ago. There are many dark spots in those consciences which I must bring to light; many harder speeches still which you must hear from me. I am come from a true Being; from Him who is true. I speak to the world that which I know to be His mind and will.' 'They did not understand,' says the Apostle, (this was their misery,) 'that it was the mind and will of a Father He was proclaiming to them; that it was from Him who loved them they were shrinking and turning away.' '_They understood not that He spake to them of the Father. Then said Jesus unto them, When ye have lifted up the Son of Man, then shall ye know that I am He, and that I do nothing of myself; but as my Father hath taught me, I speak these things._'