‘Justifying one’s claim’ has an unpleasant sound. It is suggestive of a very lively consciousness of one’s merits and of an eager desire to get them recognised. Before trying to answer the question : Did Our Lord justify His claim to be God? it is useful to ask another : Did He claim to be God? And that question, as thus emphasized, can be broken u into two : What exactly did He claim to be? and : dow did He make the claim? It is not that there is the least intention of watering down Our Blessed Lord’s declarations about Himself. From those declarations it certainly follows that He was God—if He was speaking the truth. But that is just the point. That is the real meaning of the question we have to answer. Was He speaking the truth? Ought we to accept His word? And one of the chief means of deciding whether we ought to take His word is to consider His declarations, not as resolved into one general proposition, but to consider them, as far as we can, in the concrete; that is, to try to see exactly what He said, and how, and in what circumstances, He said it. For in so doing we get some glimpse of His character, and a man’s character is one test of his credibility. Another is corroboration by a reliable witness.