Commentary on John
Apollinaris of Laodicea
They object to John, "Why then do you baptize, if you are none of these things?" They do not know that not even the Christ—who himself was the prophet—baptized, but rather his disciples. Elijah did not baptize the wood of the altar that needed dousing in the matter of Ahab, but he ordered the priests to do this. Now then, to address the words "Why then do you baptize?" John sets forth his own bodily baptism. But to address the words "if you are not the Christ," he praises the preexisting nature of Christ, saying that he is unseen in his divinity but is present to all the world. He upbraids them for their low opinion about the Christ, and he unites the Word "in the beginning" by his incarnation, as he joins the phrase "whom you do not know" with the words "the one coming after me." He shows the superiority of Christ to himself through the sentence "I am not worthy." And if he is "in the midst" either of the whole world so as to reach every rational creature, or in the midst only of us who have dominion over the world, then in any case the Word is in each person. But if his earlier presence among us remained unperceived, his coming after John would not. As John speaks about the…
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