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JOHN 7:26 — KING JAMES VERSION 0
John 7:25John 7:27
“But, lo, he speaketh boldly, and they say nothing unto him. Do the rulers know indeed that this is the very Christ?”
But, lo, he speaketh boldly, and they say nothing unto him. Do the rulers know indeed that this is the Christ? — the crowd wonders aloud: Jesus is teaching openly ('boldly,' parrēsia, with freedom of speech), yet the authorities do nothing to stop him. They ask whether perhaps the rulers have concluded he is the Messiah. The question is ironic: the crowd suspects the authorities might believe what they themselves are uncertain about. This irony drives toward the revelation that the rulers do know something about Jesus's claim to Messiahship—enough to want him dead.

Church Fathers on John 7:26

It was said above that our Lord went up to the feast secretly, not because He feared being taken, (for He had power to prevent it,) but to show figuratively, that even in the very feast which the Jews celebrated, He was hid, and that it was His mystery. Now however the power appears, which was thought timidity: He spoke publicly at the feast, in so much that the multitude marveled: They said some of them at Jerusalem, Is not this He, whom they seek to kill? but, lo, He speaks…

Augustine · 4th century

for there had been the greatest display of miracles, and there the people were in the worst state, seeing the strongest proofs of His divinity, and yet willing to give up all to the judgment of their corrupt rulers. Was it not a great miracle, that those who raged for His life, now that they had Him in their grasp, became on a sudden quiet?

Chrysostom · 4th century · The Evangelist adds, from Jerusalem

Every man, ever born in the flesh, is in a certain sense from God. How then could He say that they were ignorant who He was, and whence He was.? Because our Lord is here referring to His own peculiar birth from God, which they were ignorant of, because they did not know that He was the Son of God. His very saying then that they did not know whence He was, was telling them whence He was. If they, did not know whence He was, He could not be from nothing; for then there would be…

Hilary of Poitiers · 4th century
Read all 14 entries in the readerCatena Aurea · St. Thomas Aquinas, tr. J. H. Newman · public domain
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John 7:26 — Community Reflections | HolyStudy