evangelist puts it thus: “Then began He to speak to the people this parable; A certain man planted a vineyard,” and so on. Accordingly, we may well understand that among the people then assembled there might also have been persons who could listen to Him as those did who before this had said, “Blessed is He that cometh in the name of the Lord;” and that either these, or some of them, were the individuals who replied in the words, “He will miserably destroy these wicked men, and will let out his vineyard to other husbandmen.” The answer actually returned by these men, moreover, has been attributed to the Lord Himself by Mark and Luke, not only because their words were really His words, inasmuch1155 as He is the Truth that ofttimes speaks even by the wicked and the ignorant, moving the mind of man by a certain hidden instinct, not in the merit of man’s holiness, but by the right of His own proper power; but also because the men may have been of a character ad- mitting of their being reckoned, not without reason, as already members in the true body of Christ, so that what was said by them might quite warrantably be ascribed to Him whose members they were. For by this time He had baptized more than John,1156 and had multi- tudes of disciples, as the same evangelists repeatedly testify; and from among these followers He also drew those five hundred brethren, to whom the Apostle Paul tells us that He showed Himself after His resurrection.1157 And this explanation of the matter is supported by the fact that the phrase which occurs in the version by this same Matthew,—namely, “They say unto Him,1158 He will miserably destroy those wicked men,”—is not put in a form necessit- 164 ating us to take the pronoun illi in the plural number, as if it was intended to mark out the words expressly as the reply made by the persons who had craftily questioned Him on the subject of His authority; but the clause, “They say unto Him,”1159 is so expressed that the term illi should be taken for the singular pronoun, and not the plural, and should be held to signify “unto Him,” that is to say, unto the Lord Himself, as is made clear in the Greek codices,1160 without a single atom of ambiguity. 138. There is a certain discourse of the Lord which is given by the evangelist John, and which may help us more readily to understand the statement I thus make. It is to this effect: “Then said Jesus to those Jews which believed on Him, If ye continue in my word, then ye shall be my disciples indeed; and ye shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free. And they answered Him, We be Abraham’s seed, and were never in bondage to any man: 1155 Keeping quia veritas est, for which the reading qui veritas est = “who is the truth,” also occurs. 1156 John iv. 1. 1157 1 Cor. xv. 6. 1158 Aiunt illi. 1159 Aiunt illi. 1160 That is to say, the aiunt illi is the rendering for λέγουσιν αὐτῷ. [This reading of the Greek text is abundantly attested.—R.] 373 Of the Two Sons Who Were Commanded by Their Father to Go into His Vineyard,…