to his disciples:

“Whoever receives you and gives you lodging has in fact received me; and whoever receives me is really receiving the One who sent me. Whoever welcomes a prophet in the name of a prophet shall attain the reward of one who welcomes a prophet.”

Here and in other passages he makes it unmistakably clear that he is a sent prophet, and that his standing with God parallels their standing with him. Matthew the disciple, in his Gospel, corroborates the Messiah by citing Isaiah’s prophecy from God—Mighty and Exalted:

“This is My servant whom I have chosen, My beloved in whom My soul is well pleased. I shall place My Spirit upon him, and he will summon the nations to the truth.”

No proof could be clearer than this statement which you yourselves adduce as evidence: God has clarified his affair, called him a servant, and informed us that He will place His Spirit upon him and strengthen him with it, just as He strengthened the other prophets by means of the Spirit, so that they manifested the miracles reported of them. This pronouncement also accords with the glad tidings the angel Gabriel brought to Mary when he appeared to her and announced the words we cited at the beginning of our book.

John the disciple likewise says in the Gospel, quoting the Messiah, peace be upon him:

“The words you hear from me are the words of the One who sent me.”

And elsewhere he said—