Some said, It is he: others, No £ but he is like him. So great a change might well have provoked inquiry as to his identity, and the two classes of speakers add amazing vivacity to the picture. He ( ἐκείνος)—the man who now stood forth as the central object of the excited group (see Westcott for the use of ἐκεῖνος elsewhere in St.
John: John 2:21; John 5:11; John 10:6; John 13:30; John 19:21)—rather than "he himself"—he said, I am (he) that sat and begged. The man settles the doubt offhand, I am he. The evidence of identity, if the question be raised, is at once settled.
The vivacity and verisimilitude of the scene reduce the labored parallel with St. Paul to literary trifling.