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John Chrysostom
Catena Aurea · Johannesevangelium 1
Joh 1, 15English original
John bare witness of him, and cried, saying, This was he of whom I spake, He that cometh after me is preferred before me, for he was before me.
(Hom. xiii. [xii.] 3) If the words, made before me, referred to His coming into being, it was superfluous to add, For He was before me. For who would be so foolish as not to know, that if He was made before him, He was before him. It would have been more correct to say, He was before me, because He was made before me. The expression then, He was made before me, must be taken in the sense of honour: only that which was to take place, he speaks of as having taken place already, after the style of the old Prophets, who commonly talk of the future as the past.