25 And there are also many other things which Jesus did, the which, if they should be written every one, I suppose that even the world itself could not contain the books that should be written. Amen.



Ver. 25. I suppose that even the world itself, &c.] Nec Christus, nec caelum patitur hyperbolen, saith one. In speaking of Christ or his kingdom, a man can hardly hyperbolize. Much had St John said of our Saviour, yet nothing to what he might have said. All that ever he did was divine, and deserved to be chronicled. That commendation that Velleius Paterculus falsely gives to Scipio, that Nihil in vita nisi laudandum aut fecit, aut dixit, aut sensit, He never in all his life did, spoke, or thought anything but what was praise worthy, is true only of Christ. That which the Ecclesiastical History relates of Bennus, that he was never seen or heard by any to swear, lie, or be rashly angry, to speak or do anything that beseemed not God’s servant, is a praise proper to Christ, even as he was man. (Sozom. vi. 28.) But, consider him as God, and then that of Gratian the emperor is true, in his Epistle to St Ambrose, Loquimur de Deo, non quantum debemus, sed quantum possumus: We speak of God, not so much as we ought, but so much as we can. Nemo sapientiam Dei immensam in omnem eternitatem exhauriet. No one will be able to exhaust the infinite wisdomm of God in all eternity. He is indeed like the pool Polycritus writes of, which in compass, at the first, scarcely seemed to exceed the breadth of a shield; but if any went in it to wash, it extended itself more and more. Tantum recedit, quantum capitur, saith Nazianzen. When therefore the apostle saith, "That the world itself could not contain the books that should be written," Hoc non vult, saith Augustine, de mole librorum, nec de locali capacitate, sed quod Spiritus Sanctus nostri habuerit rationem, et ea selegerit conscribenda, quae in hac infirmitate credentes capere possint.