They said therefore to him, "Who are you? Give us an answer to take back to those who sent us. What do you say about yourself?"

 This is where John parted with all thought which had gone before him. This was the entirely new thing which John brought to the Greek world for which he was writing. Augustine afterwards said that in his pre-Christian days he had read and studied the great pagan philosophers and had read many things, but he had never read that the word became flesh. 