And Christ also, after having said that “I receive not testimony from man” ( c. v. 34 ), in order that He may not seem to the foolish to clash with Himself, by declaring at one time “There is another that beareth witness of Me and I know that his witness is true” ( c. v. 32 ) (for He pointed to John;) and at another, “I receive not testimony from man” ( c. v. 34 ); He immediately adds the solution of the doubt, “But these things I say” for your own sake, “that ye might be saved.” As though He had said, that “I am God, and the really-Begotten Son of God, and am of that Simple and Blessed Essence, I need none to witness to Me; and even though none would do so, yet am not I by this anything diminished in My Essence; but because I care for the salvation of the many, I have descended to such humility as to commit the witness of Me to a man.” For by reason of the groveling nature and infirmity of the Jews, the faith in Him would in this way be more easily received, and more palatable. As then He clothed Himself with flesh, that he might not, by encountering men with the unveiled Godhead, destroy them all; so He sent forth a man for His herald, that those who heard might at the hearing of a kindred voice approach more readily. For (to prove) that He had no need of that (herald’s) testimony, it would have sufficed that He should only have shown Himself who He was in His unveiled Essence, and have confounded them all. But this He did not for the reason I have before mentioned. He would have annihilated all, since none could have endured the encounter of that unapproachable light. Wherefore, as I said, He put on flesh, and entrusted the witness (of Himself) to one of our fellow-servants, since He arranged all for the salvation of men, looking not only to His own honor, but also to what might be readily received by, and be profitable to, His hearers. Which He glanced at when He said, “These things I say” for your sake, “that ye might be saved.” ( c. v. 34.) And the Evangelist using the same language as his Master, after saying, “to bear witness of that Light,” adds,