John beareth witness of him, and crieth out, saying: This was he of whom I spoke: He that shall come after me, is preferred before me: because he was before me.
Francis Patrick Kenrick
I have restored the Rhemish translation, because it is literal, and leaves undetermined the meaning, which is disputed. "A Catholic " maintains that it should be rendered " existed before Me," and that the two members of the sentence are of similar import ; repetitions being frequent in this evangelist. The following words he considers to be a confirmation of the previous enunciation. The modern edition is con- formable to the Protestant version : " is preferred before me." St. Au- gustin explains the text in this sense.
Imported from an open dataset — not yet checked against the printed edition.