The King shall answer. The royal Judge condescends to explain the meaning of the seeming paradox. Inasmuch as; ἐφ ὁ ìσον, rendered in the Vulgate quamdiu, rather, quatenus, in which sense the phrase is found also in Romans 11:13.
Unto one of the least of these my brethren. That is, not the apostles, nor specially but all the afflicted who have fellowship with Christ in his sufferings and Any such he is not ashamed to call his brethren.
Ye have done (ye did) it unto me. The Lord so perfectly identifies himself with the human family, whose nature he assumed, that he made their sorrows sufferings his own (Isaiah 53:4; Isaiah 63:9; Matthew 8:17), he suffered with the sufferers; his perfect sympathy placed him in their position; in all their affliction he was afflicted From this identification it follows that he regards that which is done to others as done to himself.
Thus he could expostulate the persecutor, "Saul, Saul, why persecutest thou me?" And we have the amazing revelation that he receives with the same graciousness the pious workings of natural religion in the case of those who know no better.