Others said, This is the Christ. But some said, Shall Christ come out of Galilee?
Ver. 41. Shall Christ come out of Galilee?] Satan (that subtle sophister), though he confessed Christ to be the Holy One of God, Mark 1:24, yet he calleth him Jesus of Nazareth, to nourish the error of the multitude, that thought he was born there, and so not the Messias. Neither did his cunning deceive him, as here appeareth. Satan etsi semel videatur verax, millies est mendax, et semper fallax, saith Bucholcerus. Diabolus capite blanditur, ventre oblectat, et cauda ligat, saith Rupertus.
Others said, This is the Christ] Why, this was somewhat like; and if they held them to this, no man can say with the fiducial assent of his heart, "that Jesus is the Christ, but by the Holy Ghost," 1 Corinthians 12:3. He was Christ before he was Jesus, John 6:27. Jesus is nothing else but Christus protensus et effusus, Song of Solomon 1:5. Christ shows him to be a sealed Saviour, anointed and appointed by the Father to that blessed office.
Shall Christ come out of Galilee?] Galilee of the Gentiles, whose manners likely they had learned by so near neighbourhood. Some countries have an ill name. Can any good come out of Nazareth? Hesiod complains of Ascre where he was born, that it was good for nothing (Ασκρη χειμα κακη, θερος αργαλεη, & c.) In mea patria, saith Jerome, Deus est venter, et in diem venitur, et sanctior est ille qui ditior. In my country they are neither temperate, nor provident, nor godly given. And Buchanan cries out that he was born, nec caelo, nec solo per saeculo erudite, where learning was not in fashion. But as little Hippo was better known by great Austin, who was bishop of it, than he by Hippo; so was Galilee by Christ, than he by Galilee. And as hardly as it was thought of, he is not ashamed to call himself Jesus of Nazareth, Acts 22:8, which yet was commonly cast as a reproach upon him.