But I say unto you, That Elias is come already, and they knew him not, but have done unto him whatsoever they listed. Likewise shall also the Son of man suffer of them.
Ver. 12. But I say unto you, that Elias is come] All that is likely to come, however the Papist Bellarmine (as it were to thwart Christ), by depraving that prophecy in the Revelation touching the two witnesses, which they say are Enoch and Elias, will needs persuade themselves and others, that Elias the Tishbite must come ere Antichrist be revealed. Their arguments I recite not; their author is Papias, who first devised and divulged this fable. Now Papias that ancient millenary, scholar to St John, was a man much respected for opinion of his holiness and learning, but yet homo ingenii pertenuis, saith Eusebius, not much oppressed with wit. But had he been never so absolute otherwise, he was surely out in this. And herein we may truly say of him as the Papists falsely said of another, Berengarius cum esset multum peritus, multum erravit. a But if Papias or any other ancient or modern writer should have said so much against the Popish dotages as this man hath done for them, Bellarmine, likely, would have answered, as in like case he did to Irenaeus, Tertullian, Eusebius, and Luther, I answer, "they are all arrant heretics." Omnes manifesti haeretici sunt.
And they knew him not] As neither did they the Lord of glory, because God had hid him under the carpenter's son. Christians are all "glorious within," like the tabernacle, which was gold within and goat's hair without: like Brutus' staff, which, as Plutarch reporteth, was gold within, horn without. They are princes in all lands, but as princes in foreign lands, they are untaught and therefore unknown, as the northern proverb hath it. But as, had they known, they would never have crucified the Lord of glory: so, did the world know the worth of a saint, of such a one as was the Baptist especially, b they would have given him but too much honour, as Cornelius did Peter, as Chrysostom did Babylas, and as Tertullian did some other martyrs, to whom writing he says, Non tantus sum ut vos alloquar, I am not worthy once to speak unto you.
a Antoninus apud Ussierium, de Christ. Eccles. success, et slatu.
b Magnus atque admirabills vir, si modo viri nomine designari illum fas est. Chrysost. Orat. contra Gentiles.