John Lightfoot on John 8:25

[The same that I said unto you from the beginning.] I. Amongst the several renderings of this place, this seems the most proper; The same that I said unto you from the beginning. So Genesis 43:18: The money returned.....at the first time": and verse 20, We came indeed down at the first time to buy food.

The words thus rendered may refer to that full and open profession which our Saviour made of himself before the Sanhedrim, that he was 'the Son of God,' or 'the Messiah,' chapter 5: "Do you ask me who I am? I am the same that I told you from the beginning, when I was summoned to answer before the Sanhedrim."

II. However, I cannot but a little call to mind the common forms of speech used so much in the Jewish schools, the beginning and the end. Where, by the beginning they meant any thing that was chiefly and primarily to be offered and taken notice of: by the end what was secondary, or of less weight.

The question is, whether it were lawful for the priests to sleep in their holy vestments. The end or the secondary question was, whether it was lawful for them to sleep in them. But the beginning, or the thing chiefly and primarily to be discussed, was, whether it was lawful for them to have them on at all but in divine service. Hence the Gemarists, The tradition is, that they must not sleep in them, if you will explain the end [or secondary question]: but let them put them off and fold them up, and lay them under their heads [when they sleep]: this, 'the beginning' [or chief matter in hand] determines: that is, that it is not lawful for the priest so much as to wear his holy garments but when he is in holy service.

"It is a tradition of the Rabbins. If one, in walking near any city, see lights in it, if the greatest number in that city be Cuthites, let him not bless them; if they be most Israelites, let him bless it. They teach 'the beginning,' when they say, Most Cuthites. They teach 'the end,' when they say, Most Israelites." For the chief and principal scruple was, whether they should pronounce a blessing upon those lights when there might be most Cuthites in the city that lighted them up: the lesser scruple was, whether he should bless them if there were most Israelites in that city.

"There is a dispute upon that precept, Leviticus 17:13, If any one kill a beast or bird upon a holy day, the Shammean school saith, Let him dig with an instrument and cover the blood. The school of Hillel saith, Let him not kill at all, if he have not dust ready by him to cover the blood."

The end, or the secondary question, is about covering the blood if a beast should be killed. The beginning, or the principal question, is about killing a beast or a fowl at all upon a holy day, merely for the labour of scraping up dust, if there be none at hand.

There are numberless instances of this kind: and if our Saviour had any respect to this form or mode of speaking, we may suppose what he said was to this purpose: "You ask who I am? The beginning. That is the chief thing to be inquired into, which I now say, viz. That I am the light of the world, the Messiah, the Son of God, &c. But what works I do, what doctrines I teach, and by what authority, this is an inquiry of the second place, in comparison to that first and chief question, who I am."