Cornelius a Lapide
Table of Contents
Synopsis of the Chapter
First, he describes the anointing by Magdalene, whereby she anointed Christ in Bethany shortly before His death, the price of which Judas, coveting it, sold Christ for. Secondly, at verse 17, he sets forth Christ's Last Supper and the institution of the Eucharist. Thirdly, at verse 30, His Passion — namely the prayer in the garden, His arrest, accusation, condemnation, the buffeting, Peter's threefold denial, and presently his repentance.
Vulgate Text: Matthew 26:1-75
1. And it came to pass, when Jesus had finished all these words, He said to His disciples: 2. "You know that after two days the Passover will take place, and the Son of Man will be handed over to be crucified." 3. Then the chief priests and the elders of the people gathered together in the court of the high priest, who was called Caiaphas; 4. and they took counsel together that they might seize Jesus by stealth and put Him to death. 5. But they said: "Not on the feast day, lest perhaps there be a tumult among the people." 6. Now when Jesus was at Bethany in the house of Simon the Leper, 7. there came to Him a woman having an alabaster jar of precious ointment, and she poured it upon His head as He reclined at table. 8. But when the disciples saw it they were indignant, saying: "To what purpose is this waste? 9. For this might have been sold for a great price, and given to the poor." 10. But Jesus, knowing it, said to them: "Why do you trouble this woman? for she has done a good work upon Me. 11. For the poor you have always with you: but Me you have not always. 12. For in pouring this ointment upon My body she has done it to bury Me. 13. Amen I say to you, wheresoever this Gospel shall be preached in the whole world, what she has done shall also be told for a memorial of her." 14. Then one of the twelve, who was called Judas Iscariot, went to the chief priests, 15. and said to them: "What will you give me, and I will deliver Him to you?" And they appointed him thirty pieces of silver. 16. And from that time he sought an opportunity to betray Him. 17. And on the first day of unleavened bread, the disciples came to Jesus, saying: "Where do You wish that we prepare for You to eat the Passover?" 18. But Jesus said: "Go into the city to a certain man, and say to him: The Master says, My time is at hand: I will keep the Passover at your house with My disciples." 19. And the disciples did as Jesus had appointed them, and they prepared the Passover. 20. But when evening was come, He reclined at table with His twelve disciples. 21. And as they were eating, He said: "Amen I say to you, that one of you is about to betray Me." 22. And being very much grieved, they began every one to say: "Is it I, Lord?" 23. But He answering, said: "He who dips his hand with Me in the dish, this same shall betray Me. 24. The Son of Man indeed goes, as it is written of Him: but woe to that man by whom the Son of Man shall be betrayed: it were better for him, if that man had not been born." 25. And Judas, who betrayed Him, answering, said: "Is it I, Rabbi?" He said to him: "You have said it." 26. And while they were at supper, Jesus took bread, and blessed, and broke, and gave to His disciples, and said: "Take and eat: this is My Body." 27. And taking the chalice, He gave thanks, and gave it to them, saying: "Drink all of you of this. 28. For this is My Blood of the new Testament, which shall be shed for many unto the remission of sins. 29. And I say to you, I will not drink from henceforth of this fruit of the vine, until that day when I shall drink it with you new in the kingdom of My Father." 30. And a hymn being said, they went out unto Mount Olivet. 31. Then Jesus said to them: "All of you shall be scandalized in Me this night; for it is written: I will strike the shepherd, and the sheep of the flock shall be scattered abroad. 32. But after I shall be risen again, I will go before you into Galilee." 33. And Peter answering, said to Him: "Although all shall be scandalized in You, I will never be scandalized." 34. Jesus said to him: "Amen I say to you, that in this night, before the cock crows, you shall deny Me three times." 35. Peter said to Him: "Yea, though I should die with You, I will not deny You." And in like manner said all the disciples. 36. Then Jesus came with them to a country place which is called Gethsemane; and He said to His disciples: "Sit here, until I go yonder and pray." 37. And taking with Him Peter and the two sons of Zebedee, He began to grow sorrowful and to be sad. 38. Then He said to them: "My soul is sorrowful even unto death: stay here, and watch with Me." 39. And going a little further, He fell upon His face, praying, and saying: "My Father, if it be possible, let this chalice pass from Me. Nevertheless not as I will, but as You will." 40. And He came to His disciples, and found them asleep, and He said to Peter: "Could you thus not watch one hour with Me? 41. Watch and pray, that you enter not into temptation. The spirit indeed is willing, but the flesh is weak." 42. Again the second time, He went and prayed, saying: "My Father, if this chalice may not pass away, but I must drink it, Your will be done." 43. And He came again, and found them asleep: for their eyes were heavy. 44. And leaving them, He went again: and He prayed the third time, saying the same word. 45. Then He came to His disciples, and said to them: "Sleep on now, and take your rest: behold the hour is at hand, and the Son of Man shall be betrayed into the hands of sinners. 46. Rise, let us go: behold he is at hand who will betray Me." 47. As He yet spoke, behold Judas, one of the twelve, came, and with him a great multitude with swords and clubs, sent from the chief priests and the ancients of the people. 48. And he that betrayed Him, gave them a sign, saying: Whomsoever I shall kiss, that is He, hold Him fast. 49. And forthwith coming to Jesus, he said: Hail, Rabbi. And he kissed Him. 50. And Jesus said to him: Friend, whereto art thou come? Then they came up, and laid hands on Jesus, and held Him. 51. And behold one of them that were with Jesus, stretching forth his hand, drew out his sword: and striking the servant of the high priest, cut off his ear. 52. Then Jesus saith to him: Put up again thy sword into its place: for all that take the sword shall perish with the sword. 53. Thinkest thou that I cannot ask My Father, and He will give Me presently more than twelve legions of angels? 54. How then shall the Scriptures be fulfilled, that so it must be done? 55. In that same hour Jesus said to the multitudes: You are come out as it were to a robber with swords and clubs to apprehend Me: I sat daily with you teaching in the temple, and you laid no hands on Me. 56. Now all this was done, that the Scriptures of the prophets might be fulfilled. Then the disciples all leaving Him, fled. 57. But they holding Jesus led Him to Caiaphas the high priest, where the scribes and the ancients were assembled. 58. And Peter followed Him afar off, even to the court of the high priest. And going in, he sat with the servants, that he might see the end. 59. And the chief priests and the whole council sought false witness against Jesus, that they might put Him to death; 60. and they found not, whereas many false witnesses had come in. And last of all there came two false witnesses, 61. and they said: This man said, I am able to destroy the temple of God, and after three days to rebuild it. 62. And the high priest rising up, said to Him: Answerest Thou nothing to the things which these witness against Thee? 63. But Jesus held His peace. And the high priest said to Him: I adjure Thee by the living God, that Thou tell us if Thou be the Christ the Son of God. 64. Jesus saith to him: Thou hast said it. Nevertheless I say to you, hereafter you shall see the Son of man sitting on the right hand of the power of God, and coming in the clouds of heaven. 65. Then the high priest rent his garments, saying: He hath blasphemed; what further need have we of witnesses? Behold, now you have heard the blasphemy: 66. what think you? But they answering, said: He is guilty of death. 67. Then did they spit in His face, and buffeted Him; and others struck His face with the palms of their hands, 68. saying: Prophesy unto us, O Christ, who is he that struck Thee? 69. But Peter sat without in the court; and there came to him a servant maid, saying: Thou also wast with Jesus the Galilean. 70. But he denied before them all, saying: I know not what thou sayest. 71. And as he went out of the gate, another maid saw him, and she saith to them that were there: This man also was with Jesus of Nazareth. 72. And again he denied with an oath: I know not the man. 73. And after a little while they came that stood by, and said to Peter: Surely thou also art one of them; for even thy speech doth discover thee. 74. Then he began to curse and to swear that he knew not the man. And immediately the cock crew. 75. And Peter remembered the word of Jesus which He had said: Before the cock crow, thou wilt deny Me thrice. And going forth, he wept bitterly.
Verse 1: And It Came to Pass, When Jesus Had Finished All These Words
1. AND IT CAME TO PASS, WHEN JESUS HAD FINISHED ALL THESE WORDS, HE SAID TO HIS DISCIPLES. — In Greek τὸ ἐτέλεσεν, that is, when He had finished, completed « all the words » already enumerated concerning the destruction of the city of Jerusalem and of the whole world, the day of judgment, vigilance and zeal for good works, then He girded Himself for His imminent passion and foretold it, lest He who had prophesied things far in the future should seem to be ignorant of what was about to happen to Himself; and lest His disciples should be scandalized by His death and think that those things befell Christ unknowingly and unwillingly, but that they might know that this had been foreseen, foreordained and chosen by Him for the salvation of mankind. The sense, therefore, is, as if to say, as St. Thomas says: When Christ had completed the office of teacher, He began to prepare Himself for the office of redeemer and savior.
Verse 2: You Know That After Two Days Shall Be the Pasch
2. YOU KNOW THAT AFTER TWO DAYS SHALL BE THE PASCH, AND THE SON OF MAN SHALL BE DELIVERED UP (He will be betrayed by Judas to the Jews, and by them handed over to Pilate) TO BE CRUCIFIED. — « After two days; » therefore Christ said these words, as also the immediately preceding ones in chapter 25, on Tuesday, or the third day of the week, toward evening, when according to the legal custom Wednesday, the fourth day of the week, was already beginning — the legal day, I mean, with respect to feasts: for, as says
Pererius, on Genesis 1:5, on the words: « And the evening and the morning were made one day. » It is almost certain that there was formerly in use among the Jews a threefold kind of day: namely the legal day from evening to evening, the natural day from sunrise to sunrise, and the usual day from midnight to midnight. » Therefore Christ truly says: « After two days the Pasch shall be, » because after two days, namely Wednesday and Thursday, on the evening of Thursday, when Friday was already beginning, the Pasch took place (1).
PASCHA — In Hebrew is the same as crossing or leaping over, namely of the angel striking the firstborn of the Egyptians. For this angel leapt over the houses of the Hebrews, and burst into the houses of the Egyptians, and slew their firstborn — by which slaughter he forced Pharaoh and the Egyptians to dismiss Moses and the Hebrews free out of Egypt: for pasach means to pass over. The Syrians however write pascha not with samech, as the Hebrews, but with tsade, and then pascha signifies joy and gladness; for the feast of Pascha was, and even now is, of the highest gladness and most joyful. Nazianzen, however, derives πάσχα from the Greek πάσχειν, that is, to suffer, because in the Pasch Christ suffered: for the paschal lamb, which was sacrificed at the Pasch, represented Christ to be sacrificed at the same time for the redemption of mankind. See the things said on Exodus 12, the whole chapter.
Verse 3: Then Were Gathered Together the Chief Priests and the Ancients of the People
3. THEN WERE GATHERED TOGETHER THE CHIEF PRIESTS, AND THE ANCIENTS OF THE PEOPLE, INTO THE COURT OF THE HIGH PRIEST, WHO WAS CALLED CAIAPHAS. — « Then, » namely when Jesus had said these things and had foretold His own passion, so that immediately the truth of His prediction itself, and the infallibility and efficacy of His ordination and decree — by which He had decreed to suffer at the Pasch for the salvation of mankind — might be shown. Again « then, » namely at the Pasch, at which the paschal lamb was sacrificed, by which the Hebrews had been redeemed out of Egypt. For at the same time Christ was sacrificed as a victim for the world, that the figure and type might agree with the truth and its antitype.
« Then, » therefore, that is, on the morning of Wednesday, when on the previous evening Christ had foretold the same thing, « the chief priests and elders were gathered together » (Luke 22:4 has στρατηγοὺς, that is, leaders of the army; but Luke is accustomed to call the magistrates by this term, as our translator there renders, that is, prefects and praetors, as I have shown on Acts 4:1) « of the people, » in order to deal with how to seize and kill Christ, who was now openly preaching and sharply rebuking the vices of the chief men (as appears from the whole 23rd chapter of Matthew). And so Judas, learning of this, went to them that same morning, and sold Christ to them, having agreed on the price of thirty pieces of silver, as the common sense of the Church holds, and as is sufficiently gathered from Matthew's narrative. Whence on account of this council of the Jews and the selling of Christ by Judas which happened on this day, the early Christians used to fast on this same Wednesday, as St. Augustine testifies in epistle 86, near the end; Theophylact and Victor of Antioch, writing on chapter 14 of Mark, verses 1 and 2. Indeed many Greeks, Poles and Dutchmen for the same reason still abstain from eating meat on Wednesdays, because on that day the flesh of Christ was sold.
Note: From Matthew's narrative it is gathered that Christ during these two days, namely Wednesday and Thursday, did not come to Jerusalem, as He had come on Sunday, Monday and Tuesday, to teach in the temple, but during these two days He remained in Bethany, and toward evening on Thursday returning thence to Jerusalem He celebrated the pasch there, and then prepared Himself for the passion. So Jansenius, Maldonatus and others (1).
Verse 4: And They Consulted Together That by Subtlety They Might Apprehend Jesus
4. AND THEY CONSULTED TOGETHER (in Greek συνεβουλεύσαντο, that is, they took counsel together, they entered upon plans unanimously among themselves) THAT BY SUBTLETY THEY MIGHT APPREHEND JESUS AND PUT HIM TO DEATH. — « By subtlety, » because they feared that Christ, if they wished to seize Him, would slip out of their hands, as He had done at other times. Therefore they seek a stratagem by which to capture Him, so that He cannot escape. Again they seek a stratagem in order to apprehend Him without a tumult of the people. For they feared that the people, hanging upon the mouth of Christ as upon a new and supreme Prophet, and receiving so many cures, would fight on His behalf, and would not allow Him to be seized and so torn away. Whence follows:
Verse 5: Not on the Festival Day, Lest Perhaps There Should Be a Tumult Among the People
5. AND THEY SAID: NOT ON THE FESTIVAL DAY, LEST PERHAPS THERE SHOULD BE A TUMULT AMONG THE PEOPLE. — Therefore not out of religious regard for the feast, but out of fear of the people, they were unwilling to seize Jesus on the festival day of the approaching Pasch: for at this feast an infinite multitude of Jews flocked to Jerusalem to celebrate the Pasch, among whom were many who had received from Christ the salvation of body or soul, and therefore worshiped Him as a Prophet: whom the Jews feared would stand up and fight for Him. Therefore « they are not zealous for devotion, but for crime, » says St. Jerome. Thus they say: « Not on the festival day, » as if to say: not on the Pasch, lest a tumult of the people arise, and lest we defile the most joyful festival of the Pasch with the savage murder of Jesus, but after the Pasch, when so sacred a festival has passed and the people have returned to their homes, let us seize Jesus and put Him to death. So St. Chrysostom. Thus Herod Agrippa was unwilling to strike St. Peter except after the Pasch was over, Acts 12. For the Pasch was for the Jews a feast of liberty and joy, inasmuch as on it they recalled and celebrated the benefit of their liberation from Egyptian servitude. Whence on the same day they were accustomed to release prisoners free, as they released Barabbas. The chief priests, therefore, had decided to seize and put Christ to death after the Pasch; but on account of the betrayal of Judas they changed their plan. For when Judas, on the Pasch, delivered Him into their hands, they seized and crucified Him on the very same day. For God's plan and decree was that Christ should die on the Pasch, with this purpose, that He might show the antitype to correspond to its type. For the immolation of the lamb, which was performed at the Pasch, was a type of Christ to be immolated at the same feast. By this circumstance of the feast, therefore, God signified that Christ was the true paschal lamb, who was being roasted on the cross for the redemption of the world.
Verse 6: And When Jesus Was in Bethany, in the House of Simon the Leper
6. AND WHEN JESUS WAS IN BETHANY, IN THE HOUSE OF SIMON THE LEPER. — Here Matthew goes back further to recount things that had happened earlier, in order to relate the occasion and manner of the seizure and passion of Christ. For Judas, on the occasion of this ointment, was moved to betray Christ to the Jews, so that by His betrayal he might recover the price of the ointment and as a thief hide it away in his money-bag. For this banquet of Christ in the house of Simon took place on the day before Palm Sunday, namely on the Sabbath, when on the next day, namely on Sunday itself, He entered Jerusalem as it were triumphing with palms, as is clear from John 12:1, where it is said: Jesus, « six days before the Pasch, » that is, six days before the Pasch, namely on Friday, « came to Bethany. » And he adds: « And they made » — namely Simon together with his household — « Him a supper, » namely on the following Sabbath, and on the day after, namely Palm Sunday, Jesus, borne on an ass with solemn pomp, entered Jerusalem as if a king and Messiah.
IN THE HOUSE. — Reclining at the table, since He was invited to the banquet by Simon.
OF SIMON THE LEPER. — The Fathers think he is called a leper because he had been such, but had been cured of leprosy by Christ. Others think that the τὸ « leper » is a common surname of Simon's family, either because he was descended from a leper, or for some other relation to a leper. For at Rome there was likewise a family of the Claudii, the Caeci, the Balbi, even though many of them were not lame, blind, or stammering.
Verse 7: There Came to Him a Woman Having an Alabaster Box of Precious Ointment
7. THERE CAME TO HIM A WOMAN HAVING AN ALABASTER BOX OF PRECIOUS OINTMENT, AND POURED IT ON HIS HEAD AS HE WAS RECLINING. — This is the same banquet as that which John relates in 12:1, as is clear to one comparing Matthew with John. By recapitulation, therefore, Matthew here recounts that, in order to set forth the occasion which moved Judas to betray Christ to the Jews, as I have said.
You will object: John says: « They made Him a supper, and Martha was serving. » Therefore this banquet was held in the house of Martha, not of Simon. I respond by denying the consequence; for John does not say: Martha and Magdalene made Him (though St. Chrysostom and Euthymius do explain it thus) a banquet in their own house, but simply, « they made Him a supper, » namely the citizens of Bethany, the friends of Jesus, among whom the principal one was this Simon the leper, whom many along with Jansenius think had previously been cured by Christ of leprosy, and was therefore obliged to Him. Martha, however, was serving at this supper, either because she was a neighbor, or because she was a relative or friend of Simon.
WOMAN. — Mary Magdalene, as John expresses in 12:3, who, just as two years before, when she first repented and washed Jesus' feet with her tears, anointed those same feet with ointment, so here, six days before the Pasch and the death of Christ, did the same — partly out of devotion, partly by divine instinct, as if presaging
the imminent death and burial of Christ, as will appear at verse 12.
ALABASTER. — It was an ointment vessel made out of alabastrite, or onyx, a stone of the marble kind, which Pliny in book 36, chapter 8, teaches is hollowed out for ointment vessels, because it preserves ointments excellently from corruption. Whence it is no wonder that this hollow vessel, thin and delicate as glass, could easily be broken by Magdalene with a driven nail or small mallet, so as to pour out the whole ointment upon Christ's head: unless you prefer to say that an alabastrum is called a smooth vessel without a handle, of the apothecaries, who fill their shops with such vessels, and store in them their spices, ointments and medicines.
Otherwise St. Epiphanius, in his book On Measures: « An alabastrum, » he says, « is a small glass vessel for ointment, holding a pound of oil, but in measure it is half a sextarius: it is called alabastrum because of its fragility. » Thus he.
OF OINTMENT. — That the Jews used scented ointments after the manner of the Arabs, Persians, Syrians and other Orientals at their banquets for joy and refreshment, and for preventing drunkenness, I have shown on Ecclesiastes 9:8. Furthermore, these ointments were often not thick, like those with which surgeons anoint wounds and sores, but liquid, that is, they were liquors made and mixed from fragrant herbs, with which they bathed the head and the whole body, refreshing and recreating it, invented for the sake of pleasure: this ointment, then, was a liquor of nard, as is clear from John 12:3. Nard is fragrant, and abounds in Syria. Whence Tibullus:
Long since with Tyrian (or rather Syrian) nard your temples soaked.
On the excellence and meaning of nard I have spoken on Canticles 4:13. It is certain that from nard anointed with oil there is made a most precious ointment, with which the ancients used to anoint their heads, as Pliny testifies in book 13, chapters 1 and 2, and book 12, chapter 12; and Dioscorides, book 1, chapter 6.
PRECIOUS. — In Greek βαρυτίμου, that is, of heavy price. For of old, gold and silver were not stamped into coin, as is now done, but were weighed out to a certain weight, e.g. to a drachma, an ounce, a pound. Whence what was heavier and weightier was of greater price. The Syriac adds « most sweet »; Mark adds « of spicati (nard) »; John, « pistic »: what these two mean I shall say at John 12:3.
AND POURED IT OUT UPON HIS HEAD AS HE WAS RECLINING. — You will say: John 12:3 has: « She anointed the feet of Jesus, and wiped His feet with her hair. » I respond that Magdalene anointed Jesus' feet, then poured the whole vessel upon Jesus' head: for she broke the vessel of narrow mouth, as Mark has it, in order to pour all the ointment with great affection of devotion upon Jesus' head. So St. Augustine, in book 2 On the Harmony of the Evangelists, chapter 79. John adds: « She wiped His feet, » namely before anointing them, since they were dirty with dust: for Christ used to walk with His feet bare on top, as I have said in chapter 10:10): therefore she first wiped away the dust of the feet with her hair, and then anointed His feet with nard. So Toletus. If, however, anyone wishes to say that after the anointing the feet of Christ, soaked with the liquid, were wiped, I do not contradict.
John adds, in order to explain the excellence and fruit of the ointment: « And the house was filled with the odor of the ointment. » In Magdalene, then, was fulfilled that of Canticles 1: « While the king was at his repose, my spikenard sent forth the odor thereof, » as I have said there; and in Christ that: « Thy name is as oil poured out, » in the same place. Whence Hilary here, chapter 29: « This woman, » he says, « poured out all the care of her body (which she was wont to anoint) and the whole affection of her precious mind into the honor and praise of God. »
Tropologically Origen: First, oil or ointment is the work of virtue, especially of mercy, which, if it is done out of natural compassion, not for God's sake, as is done by infidels, God indeed accepts it, but not unto eternal life; if, however, it is done out of love of God, it is excellent oil of good odor. Again, if a good work is done for relieving the want of the poor, it is an anointing of the Lord's feet: for just as the feet in the body are the lowest, so the poor in the Church are the lowest. But if it is done for the glory of God, as when one strives after chastity, fastings, and prayers, it is an anointing of the Lord's head, and a precious ointment, with the fragrance of which the whole Church is filled, and this is the proper work of the perfect.
Secondly, the Gloss: « This woman, » it says, « anointing the head and feet of Christ, signifies the faith of the Church, which, while it preaches and invokes the divinity of Christ, anoints the head; while it preaches His humanity, the feet. » For the head, says Alcuin, is the loftiness of divinity; the feet, the humility of the incarnation; or the head is Christ Himself; the feet are the poor, who are His members.
Thirdly, finally, he anoints the feet who in the active life serves his neighbor; but the head, who through contemplation cleaves to God and becomes one spirit with Him. So nearly Origen. Again, he anoints the head who preaches lofty things about Christ; the feet, who venerates the lowly things. So the Gloss from Origen.
Verse 8: The Disciples Seeing It Had Indignation: To What Purpose Is This Waste?
8. AND THE DISCIPLES SEEING IT HAD INDIGNATION, SAYING: TO WHAT PURPOSE IS THIS WASTE? — Namely, this empty pouring out of so precious an ointment. You will say, St. John in chapter 12 says that only Judas murmured. Some respond, with Maldonatus, that there is an enallage and syllepsis of number: « disciples » means « disciple, » namely Judas. More plainly, St. Augustine, in book 2 On the Harmony of the Evangelists, chapter 69, responds that Judas was the leader and instigator of this murmuring, who roused the other Apostles, under the appearance of pity for the poor, to an indignation flowing from true affection of mercy, while he himself, feigning, was indignant out of avarice, because the price of this ointment had not been put into his money-bag, but had been poured out upon Christ's head.
Verse 9: For This Might Have Been Sold for Much, and Given to the Poor
9. FOR THIS MIGHT HAVE BEEN SOLD FOR MUCH (« more than three hundred pence, » that is, julii or royals, as Mark has it), AND GIVEN TO THE POOR. — As if to say: This ointment ought not to have been poured out for delight and luxury upon the head of Christ, but out of necessity into the bosom of many poor people. The same was the view of Calvin, who, lest anyone should draw upon Magdalene's example to prove the honor of funerals performed with lights, incense, and other ornaments, says that this deed of Magdalene's is not to be approved, nor imitated, but only to be excused on the grounds that it was performed by a special instinct of the Holy Spirit; otherwise it would have been better to give this price to the poor. But who does not see here that the spirit of Judas and the spirit of Calvin are one and the same, and that Satan speaks through Calvin the same thing that he spoke through Judas, whom Christ accordingly here refutes?
Verse 10: And Jesus Knowing It, Said: Why Do You Trouble This Woman?
10. AND JESUS KNOWING (foreseeing by His divine power and prophetic Spirit their secret murmur, stirred up directly indeed against the woman who was anointing Him, but indirectly against Him who allowed Himself to be anointed), SAID TO THEM: WHY DO YOU TROUBLE THIS WOMAN (the Arabic: why do you reprehend the woman)? FOR SHE HAS WROUGHT A GOOD WORK UPON ME. — « GOOD, » in Greek καλόν, that is, beautiful, excellent, eminent, and worthy of distinguished praise. For what is more beautiful, more worthy, more excellent than to anoint the feet of God? For Christ was as much God as man: who would not call himself blessed if he were permitted to touch and kiss the feet of Christ?
Verse 11: For the Poor You Have Always With You; But Me You Have Not Always
11. FOR THE POOR YOU HAVE ALWAYS WITH YOU; BUT ME YOU HAVE NOT ALWAYS. — As if to say: The world always abounds in the poor, and so you can always do good to them; but I shall die and depart to heaven after six days, and you will never be able to render Me any service, indeed not even to see, hear, or touch Me. Therefore allow this woman to perform this act of devotion toward Me, which you will after six days vainly long for.
Verse 12: For She in Pouring This Ointment Upon My Body Has Done It for My Burial
12. FOR SHE IN POURING THIS OINTMENT UPON MY BODY HAS DONE IT FOR MY BURIAL. — Christ could have excused Magdalene by reason of the excellence of His own divine Person, who was being anointed by her, on whose account it was better and of greater merit to spend the price of this ointment upon Him than to feed many poor with it, as Theophylact teaches: which still has its place in the adornment of churches, altars, chalices, priestly vestments, and the like. For this is done in honor of the Person of Christ, to stir up the devotion and reverence of others toward Him, when no special necessity of the poor arises. Christ could also have excused her and praised her affection, in that out of gratitude, piety, humility, reverence, and devotion she performed this anointing. But out of modesty He did not wish to use these titles, and only excuses her on the ground « that she has done it for My burial, » so as to signify that death was at hand for Him, and that He was dying not unawares and unwillingly, but knowingly and willingly — nay, that He had even arranged this anointing for His death,
Spirit toward signifying and honoring His death and burial: wherefore it seemed to be reserved and directed toward it by the Holy Spirit, just as if Christ had been anointed in the very burial itself.
Verse 13: Wheresoever This Gospel Shall Be Preached, What She Has Done Shall Be Told for a Memorial of Her
13. AMEN I SAY TO YOU, WHERESOEVER THIS GOSPEL SHALL BE PREACHED (this evangelical history of My life) IN THE WHOLE WORLD, IT SHALL BE TOLD (the Arabic: shall be remembered) ALSO WHAT SHE HAS DONE, IN MEMORY OF HER, — namely of Magdalene, not of Christ, as is clear from the Greek αὐτῆς, which is feminine; as if to say: This anointing and this act of piety shall be celebrated for Magdalene's public and perpetual praise throughout the whole world, and for the infamy and disgrace of Judas who reproaches her. So Bede. As if to say (Victor of Antioch in chapter 14 of Mark, verse 9, says): « So far am I from condemning her as having done evil, or reproaching her as having acted less than rightly, that I shall at no time permit this deed to lie hidden. For what was done by her in private and in secret, the whole world shall come to know, because it was done with a pious mind, with fervent faith, and a contrite heart; for it was pleasing to Me not so much for the expense as for the faith which she offered together with the ointment. For it was to Me as the most fragrant of perfumes. »
Verse 14: Then One of the Twelve, Who Was Called Judas Iscariot, Went to the Chief Priests
14. THEN ONE OF THE TWELVE, WHO WAS CALLED JUDAS ISCARIOT, WENT TO THE CHIEF PRIESTS, — « Then, » refer this partly to what immediately preceded, and partly to the council of the chief priests concerning the seizing of Christ, verse 16. As if to say: On the sabbath before Palm Sunday, when Judas, the originator of the murmuring, heard himself rebuked by Christ, he did not come to his senses as the other Apostles did who had been led into the murmuring by Judas; but « then » he hardened his brow, put on shamelessness, and, raging with avarice and wickedness, resolved to betray and sell Christ to the Jews. Wherefore on the fourth day, that is on Wednesday next following, when the chief priests were taking counsel about the manner of seizing Christ, he came to them, suggested the manner, and pledged to deliver Him into their hands for the agreed price of 30 pieces of silver.
ONE OF THE TWELVE — Apostles. As if to say: This one was not from among the seventy disciples of Christ, which would have been more tolerable; but he was one of the twelve Apostles, the most familiar and intimate of Christ, whom Christ had raised to the highest grade of Apostleship. Hence this was the signal ingratitude and impiety of Judas, which pierced the heart of Christ, so that He said: « For if my enemy had reviled me, I would verily have borne with it, etc. But thou, a man of one mind, my guide, and my familiar, who didst take sweet meats together with me: in the house of God we walked with consent, » Psalm 54:13. Wherefore Saint Augustine in tract 61 on John, and Saint Jerome (or whoever the author is, for the style plainly differs from Saint Jerome's), on chapter 14 of Mark, say: « One, by calling, not by predestination; in number, not in merit; in body, not in mind; in appearance, not in virtue. »
HE WENT. — « Satan entering into him, » as Mark has it — not that Satan glided into the soul of Judas and inclined his intellect and will to betray Christ: for God alone can glide into the soul, as Didymus rightly teaches in tract 3 On the Holy Spirit. Nor that Satan corporally possessed Judas, as he possesses the demoniacs, but that he set before his imagination reasons fitting to it, by which he persuaded him to the betrayal of Christ, as Saint John explains in chapter 13:2. Yet the same John, in the same place, verse 27, after the supper, when Judas had received the morsel from Christ, writes that Satan entered into him, namely that he might in fact carry out and accomplish in deed the betrayal of Christ which he had already pondered and resolved upon in his mind: for as Judas on Wednesday set out to plot this crime, so on the following Thursday by night, at the devil's prompting, he proceeded to consummate the same. This phrase signifies the atrocity and monstrousness of the crime, as if man alone were not sufficient to perpetrate it, but there was need of the help and instigation of the devil. For so great was this deed that it seemed to be the work not of a man, but of Lucifer.
Verse 15: What Will You Give Me, and I Will Deliver Him to You?
15. AND HE SAID TO THEM: WHAT WILL YOU GIVE ME, AND I WILL DELIVER HIM TO YOU? — The Arabic: What will you give me, that I may hand Him over to you? « Unhappy Judas, » says Saint Jerome, « wishes to make up by the price of his Master the loss which he believed he had incurred by the pouring out of the ointment. Yet he does not demand a fixed sum, that the betrayal might at least appear gainful; but as one handing over a cheap slave, he placed it in the power of the buyers to give whatever they would. » So far Saint Jerome, who supposes that Judas did not exact a fixed price, nor bargain over it with the chief priests, but left it to their discretion, as if to say: Give me what you will. More truly, others maintain that here Judas did bargain with the chief priests, as if to say: I will sell Christ to you, but for so great a man and one so hateful to you, I demand a worthy price. How much, then, will you give me for Him?
AND THEY APPOINTED HIM THIRTY PIECES OF SILVER, — They struck a bargain with him for the price of 30 pieces of silver. See here the unworthy baseness of Judas, who valued and sold so cheaply Christ the Savior of the world, his Master and Lord — a baseness which pierced Christ and afflicted Him with great sorrow. Hence Saint Ambrose, in book III On the Holy Spirit, chapter 18: « O Judas the betrayer! » he says, « you value the ointment of His Passion at three hundred pence, and you sell His Passion for thirty pence: rich in valuation, base in crime! »
You will ask, of what weight and price these pieces of silver were. First, Saint Ambrose, in the words just cited, judges that each was of one drachma: for the denarius is a Spanish royal, or a Roman julius, which weighs a drachma. Therefore the 30 pieces of silver would have been 30 julii, which make three Roman gold pieces, or seven and a half Brabant florins. But this is a very meager price, with which the potter's field could not have been bought (1).
Second, Baronius, in the year of Christ 34, page 175, from Elias in his Tisbi, R. David, and other more recent Rabbis (who are accordingly of less credibility and suspect of fables), holds the opinion that « piece of silver » in Zechariah and the Prophets, and consequently here in Saint Matthew (for he refers to Zechariah, as will appear in chapter 27:9), is to be taken for a pound of silver. Therefore, since one ounce of silver is one philippic dalerus, which is worth 10 royals or julii — if you take the common pound, which contains 12 ounces or 12 philippic dalers, that is 30 Brabant florins — the 30 pieces of silver will make 900 Brabant florins; but if you take the larger pound of 16 ounces, they will make 1200 florins, with which the potter's field could easily have been bought. But who would believe that the avaricious Jews would have agreed to so great a price to base Judas, who voluntarily offered them his services not for selling but only for the betrayal and pointing out of a man met with daily, especially when the Fathers and Zechariah in chapter 11, verse 12, marvel at this price as small, base, and unworthy?
Third, more probably Maldonatus, Pererius, Franciscus Lucas, Salmeron, and others understand by « pieces of silver » shekels. Christ, therefore, seems to have been sold by Judas for 30 shekels, that is, 30 Brabant florins, the price at which the life of any slave was valued and was to be redeemed from the slayer, according to the law of Exodus 21. Christ and His life are therefore here equated by Judas and the Jews to a slave and his life.
Fourthly, because Jeremiah in chapter 32:9 distinguishes a stater, that is a shekel, as the Hebrew has it, from « pieces of silver »; for he says: « Weigh out for him in silver seven staters and ten pieces of silver. » And because Budaeus, in book V On the As, whom Suarez, Ribera and others follow, asserts that he saw at Paris the coin for which Christ was sold, and that it weighed only two Attic drachmas, or two julii or two Spanish royals; hence it seems more likely that the « piece of silver » was half a shekel, and double a denarius. A « piece of silver, » therefore, is two julii, or two royals, that is, half a Brabant florin. Wherefore Christ, sold for 30 pieces of silver, was sold for 15 Brabant florins, or six crowns, that is, six Roman gold pieces. I was more confirmed in this opinion at Rome, where in the church of the Holy Cross in Jerusalem, together with a part of the Holy Cross, a nail, and the thorns brought thither by Saint Helena, I saw one of those 30 pieces of silver for which Christ was sold. For it is about the size of two royals, or rather smaller than a double royal of ten asses or stivers, but a little thicker. Hence also Zechariah by way of irony calls this price « comely, » that is, uncomely and most base.
You will ask again: How could the potter's field be bought for 15 Brabant florins? I answer: The Hebrew שדה sade, and the Syriac קלא chakel, that is « field, » signifies a plain or any sort of land, even though sandy, stony, brushy and barren, as are sandy stretches; such as this one seems to have been, namely unfit for ploughing and other uses, and that of small extent; for it served only for the burial of pilgrims, which usually is of low price, like the cemeteries of the Jews outside the cities in Germany. Perhaps too the remainder of the price which was lacking from the 30 pieces of silver, the chief priests supplied and added from the temple-treasury (corbona).
Note first: The type of the selling of Christ was the selling of Joseph, done by his brothers; but Joseph was sold for 20 pieces of silver, Christ for 30, because it was not fitting for the servant to be made equal to the Lord. For it was not right, says Saint Jerome, that the servant should be sold for as much as the Lord.
Note second: Judas, according to Saint Ambrose, received a tenth part of the price of the ointment with which Christ was anointed; for it was valued at three hundred pence, while Judas sold Christ for 30 pence, which are a tenth part of three hundred. For multiply 30 pence by ten, and you will have three hundred. But it is truer that Judas received not a tenth, but a fifth part. For a piece of silver is not a denarius, but double a denarius: wherefore the 30 pieces of silver make 60 pence, which are the fifth part of 300: « By so cheap an auction Christ wishes Himself to be valued, that He may be bought by all, and that no poor man may be deterred, » says Saint Ambrose on chapter 7 of Luke, near the end.
Third, because Christ was sold for so cheap a price, hence He Himself deserved to become the price of the redemption of the whole world, as well as of all sinners. For sin and the sinner value and esteem a cheap thing on a level with God — nay, above God. Thus tropologically, those sell Christ at a cheap price who sell the Sacraments, benefits, justice, and their chastity for a small price; for Christ is holiness, truth, justice, chastity, and the like, which surpass every price of earth.
Fourthly, on account of these 30 pieces of silver with which Judas and the Jews bought Christ, they are smitten with thirty maledictions by God, Psalm 108, of which the first is: « Set Thou a sinner over him; » the second: « May the devil stand at his right hand; » the third: « When he is judged, may he go forth condemned; » the fourth: « May his prayer be turned into sin; » the fifth: « May his days be few; » the sixth: « May another receive his bishopric, » etc. Hence finally, says Hegesippus, the Jews captured by Titus, thirty of them were sold for one denarius, that is, for one royal or julius.
Verse 16: And From Thenceforth He Sought Opportunity to Betray Him
16. AND FROM THENCEFORTH HE SOUGHT OPPORTUNITY TO BETRAY HIM. — And he found it on the following Thursday, which was the first day of unleavened bread, as follows. Hear Origen: « What sort of opportunity he sought, Luke has explained more clearly, saying: And he sought opportunity to deliver Him to them without the multitudes, that is, when the people were not around Him, but He was secluded with His disciples — which is what he did, betraying Him at night after the supper, when He was secluded in the field of Gethsemane. »
Verse 17: On the First Day of Unleavened Bread the Disciples Came to Jesus
17. AND ON THE FIRST DAY OF UNLEAVENED BREAD THE DISCIPLES CAME TO JESUS, SAYING: WHERE WILT THOU THAT WE PREPARE FOR THEE TO EAT THE PASCH? — That is, the paschal lamb, which was sacrificed to God in the Passover feast for the « passing over, » and after being sacrificed and roasted was eaten by each household. For pascha properly means « passing over, » and from there metonymically the lamb sacrificed for the passing over, and again the day and feast on which the lamb was sacrificed. Furthermore, because this lamb was to be eaten with unleavened bread, that is, with pure and unleavened loaves, according to the law of Exodus 12, and that for seven days, which were accordingly called the days of unleavened bread, hence the first day of unleavened bread was the same as the feast day of Passover: for with the Passover began the use and eating of unleavened bread, as I said in Exodus chapter 12. The Passover was celebrated on the 14th day of the first month at evening, that is at the full moon of the first month called Nisan, which was the one in which fell the full moon coinciding with the spring equinox, or the one immediately following: wherefore Nisan corresponds partly to our March and partly to April.
This, then, is the chronological order of the last eight days of Christ's life. Christ on the sixth day of the week, that is on Friday, which was the eighth day of the month Nisan, came from Ephrem to Bethany. On the next day, the sabbath, He supped in the house of Simon the Leper, where Magdalene anointed Him, while Judas murmured because he had not received the price of this ointment, and was therefore plotting to betray Christ. On the following day, Sunday, which was the tenth day of the month Nisan, Christ entered Jerusalem with solemn pomp and palm branches. On the eleventh day of Nisan, that is on Monday, He cursed the barren fig tree and taught in the temple. On the twelfth day of Nisan, that is on Tuesday, while teaching in the temple, He disputed with the Scribes and Pharisees, repeatedly threatened them with « woe, » Matthew 23, and prophesied concerning the time of the destruction of the world and of the city of Jerusalem, and foretold the signs preceding both, and therefore by various parables exhorted all to vigilance and zeal for good works, Matthew 24 and 25. On the thirteenth day of Nisan, that is on Wednesday, the chief priests held council about seizing Christ; on which day Judas sold Him to them for thirty pieces of silver. On the fourteenth of Nisan, that is on Thursday at evening, was the feast of Passover, in which Christ ate the paschal lamb with His own, instituted the Eucharist, and presently, while praying in Gethsemane, was betrayed by Judas and seized by the Jews. On the fifteenth day of Nisan, that is on Friday, He was crucified and put to death. On the sixteenth day of Nisan, that is on the sabbath, He rested in the sepulchre. On the seventeenth day of Nisan, that is on Sunday, He gloriously rose from the sepulchre.
AND ON THE FIRST DAY OF UNLEAVENED BREAD, — that is, on the fourteenth moon, or the full moon, or the 14th day of the first month Nisan, Christ before or about noon sent two of His disciples from Bethany to Jerusalem, to prepare and roast the paschal lamb, so that He might eat it with His own in the evening. Note here that the first day of unleavened bread is sometimes called the 14th day of the month Nisan, but sometimes the 15th. For the evening on which the Jews celebrated the phase, with which began the days and the eating of unleavened bread, according to the natural reckoning of days, belonged to the preceding day, that is to the 14th of Nisan, but the same according to the sacred reckoning, which was kept in the feasts, belonged to the following day, which was the 15th of Nisan. For the feasts of the Hebrews began at evening and ended at the following evening. So Saint Augustine, in epistle 86 to Casulanus.
You will ask, on what day precisely Christ celebrated the Passover and instituted the Eucharist, whether on the same day on which the Jews celebrated the Passover, or on another? I take it for granted that Christ suffered and was crucified on the sixth day of the week, that is on Friday, as is clear from Luke and John and from the sense and consensus of the whole Church: therefore on the day before, that is on Thursday at evening, He ate the lamb and instituted the Eucharist (1). Now:
First, Euthymius and the Greeks maintain that Christ celebrated the Pasch on the 13th moon, or the 13th of the month Nisan: for they hold that He anticipated the time of Passover appointed by the law on account of His passion, which was to take place on the next day, on which the Jews celebrated the Passover. And because on the next day with the Passover began the use of unleavened bread, they hold that Christ instituted the Eucharist before the unleavened bread, in bread that was not unleavened but leavened, and therefore they themselves celebrate with leavened bread, and say that this is a precept. Hence they condemn the Latins celebrating with unleavened bread, calling them heretics and Azymites, and wash their altars, as if defiled with unleavened bread, before celebrating on them. They prove this from Saint John, who in chapter 13, verses 1 and 2, says: « Before the festival day of the Pasch; » that is, before the 14th moon, when the unleavened bread began, that Christ made the supper, namely of the paschal lamb and the Eucharist.
Secondly, Rupertus, Joannes Lucidus, Gagneius, Jansenius, Maldonatus, and at length Salmeron, tract 9, tome 4, hold that Christ according to the law celebrated the Passover at the 14th lunation, that is on the 14th of Nisan, but that the Jews postponed it to the 15th of Nisan (in whose favor Saint John seems to be): for there was a tradition, says Burgensis from Seder Olam, that if the Passover fell on the sixth day of the week, that is on the Parasceve, it should be transferred to the sabbath, so that two solemn feasts, namely of Passover and the sabbath, might not concur. But this tradition and custom is more recent and began after Christ, as is shown from the Talmud and Aben Ezra, and
...and from Saint Epiphanius and the Asians, as Bellarmine proves in his book On the Eucharist, chapter 8, and as Toletus, Suarez, Saint Thomas, Abulensis, and others hold.
Thirdly — with whom I agree — I say that Christ and the Jews celebrated the Passover on the same day prescribed by the law, namely on the 14th day of the month Nisan at evening. That this is so is plain from Matthew, Mark, and Luke, who say that Christ celebrated the Passover on the first day of unleavened bread, on which « it was necessary (by law) that the pasch should be slain, » and on which day « they sacrificed the pasch, » namely the Jews. Otherwise the Jews would have charged and condemned Christ as a transgressor of the law and of Judaism, and as an apostate.
You will object first: if Christ celebrated the Passover on the 14th of Nisan, how then do Matthew, Mark, and Luke say that He celebrated it on the first day of unleavened bread, since this fell on the 15th of Nisan?
I answer: I have already said that the first day of unleavened bread is partly the 14th of Nisan and partly the 15th. For the evening on which the Jews celebrated the phase, with which began the days and use of unleavened bread, according to the natural reckoning of days, belonged to the day which preceded the evening, namely to the 14th of Nisan; but the same, according to the sacred reckoning of feasts, belonged to the following day, which was the 15th of Nisan, because the Jews celebrated their feasts from evening to evening. And in this sense John says that Christ ate the lamb « before the festival day of the Pasch, » that is, on the 14th of Nisan at evening, which precedes the day of Passover, that is the 15th of Nisan, which is the first of unleavened bread, according to the sacred reckoning.
You will object secondly: John in 18:28 says that the Jews did not enter the praetorium, lest they be defiled, but that being pure they might eat the pure pasch. I answer: « Pasch » there does not mean the paschal lamb, for this had already been sacrificed and eaten on the preceding evening, but it means the other paschal victims, which on the seven following days, and especially on the first day of unleavened bread, that is on the morning of the 15th of the moon, were customarily sacrificed by law.
You will object thirdly: John in chapter 19:21 calls the 15th day of Nisan, on which Christ celebrated the supper of the lamb, the Parasceve of the Pasch. I answer: « Of the Pasch, » that is, of the paschal sabbath, or of the sabbath which fell within the week of Passover, and which was therefore holier and more celebrated than other sabbaths. Hence John, explaining in the same place, adds: « For that day of the sabbath was a great day. » This is plain from Mark, who in chapter 15:32 calls this Parasceve « pro-sabbath »: « It was, » he says, « the Parasceve, which is before the sabbath. » For on the Parasceve, that is on Friday, food and the other necessities were to be prepared for the sabbath which would come the next day. For on the sabbath, as being most holy, all work was to cease, so that it was not lawful even to cook food, which nevertheless was lawful on other feasts.
You will object fourthly: the chief priests say in Matthew 26:5, « Not on the festival day, » let us seize and slay Christ. I answer that they afterwards changed their counsel through the betrayal of Judas, and seized and slew Christ on the very feast of Passover.
You will object fifthly: Pentecost in the year in which Christ died fell on a Sunday: for the Holy Spirit descended upon the Apostles on a Sunday: therefore if from this Sunday you reckon back 50 days, the Passover fell on the sabbath. To this argument I have answered at length on Acts 2:1.
THE DISCIPLES CAME (two, says Mark, namely « John and Peter, » says Luke) TO JESUS, SAYING: WHERE WILT THOU THAT WE PREPARE FOR THEE TO EAT THE PASCH? — « Where, » they do not ask about a town or city, but about a house or lodging. For they were sure from the law, Deuteronomy 16:5, 6, and 7, that the Passover could not be sacrificed except in Jerusalem, as the city chosen by God for His worship and temple. Hence Titus, the avenger of God, besieging Jerusalem at Passover, hemmed in and seized or killed all the Jews who had flocked thither from all of Judaea to celebrate the Passover; although the paschal lamb was sacrificed not in the temple by the priests, but at home by each father of the family, who for this purpose retained the ancient right of priesthood, given long ago to the firstborn of families. Philo plainly teaches this in the book On the Decalogue, near the end: « At Passover, » he says, « individuals sacrifice popularly, not awaiting the priests, themselves by leave of the law here exercising the priesthood. »
For the sacrifice of the paschal lamb consisted rather in its eating (whence the disciples say, « to eat the pasch ») than in its sacrificing. Hence it could be slaughtered, sacrificed, flayed, and roasted, not indeed by public and profane butchers, but either by a priest, or by anyone of the family whom the head of the household designated, just as Peter and John, here sent by Christ, slaughtered, sacrificed, and roasted the lamb, and prepared the unleavened breads and the wild lettuces with which the lamb was to be eaten.
Furthermore, the lamb was customarily slaughtered at the ninth hour, that is at the third hour after noon, as Josephus testifies in book VII of The Jewish War, chapter 17, so that according to the law of Exodus 12 it could be eaten in the evening.
Verse 18: Go Into the City to a Certain Man: My Time Is Near at Hand
18. AND JESUS SAID: GO INTO THE CITY (Jerusalem: hence it is plain that Christ said this in Bethany) TO A CERTAIN MAN, AND SAY TO HIM: THE MASTER SAITH: MY TIME IS NEAR AT HAND; WITH THEE I MAKE THE PASCH WITH MY DISCIPLES. — « To a certain man; » the Syriac, levath pelon, that is, « to such a one »; the Hebrews say peloni almoni (whence the Spaniards got their fulano) when they designate someone whom they do not name. Moreover, by what marks Christ designated him, Mark indicates by saying: « There shall meet you a man carrying a pitcher of water: follow him, and wheresoever he shall go in, say to the master of the house: The master saith: Where is My refection (place of refection), where I may eat the pasch with My disciples? And he will show you a large dining room furnished, and there prepare for us. And the disciples went and came into the city, and found as He had told
them, and they prepared the pasch. » Luke has the same in 22:10 (1).
Note here that this water-pitcher carrier and pointer to the house was different from the master or owner of the house, as is clear from the words of Mark. For this master seems to have been an upright and wealthy man, having a spacious dwelling, and, it seems, a friend and disciple of Christ. There is a tradition that this house was that of John, who was surnamed Mark, and was the companion of Paul and Barnabas in their journey and preaching of the Gospel. Hence in this same house the Apostles hid after the death of Christ, and there Christ after His resurrection appeared to them on the very day of Passover at evening, and there also they received the Holy Spirit while praying at Pentecost. Hence Peter, freed from Herod's prison by an angel, betook himself to the faithful gathered in this house, as Luke testifies in Acts 12:12. Wherefore this house was turned into a church.
For in it Sion was built, the greatest and holiest of all churches. All this is taught by Alexander in the Life of Saint Barnabas the Apostle, whom Baronius, Jansenius, Adrichomius, and our Canisius follow in book V of the Marial, chapter 1. For « where is My refection, » as the Interpreter renders it in Mark, the Greek has κατάλυμα, that is « lodging, » as the Interpreter renders it in Luke and the Syriac — and this is clearer. For « dining room, » the Greek has ἀνώγαιον, as it were, « upper story » or « solarium, » raised above the ground, such as we see at Rome inhabited by the more genteel. Hence this was a type of the Church, which stretches from earth to heaven and dwells in the heavens with its mind.
MY TIME IS NEAR AT HAND. — « Time, » namely of dying and of consummating My mission, so that through death and resurrection I may return to the Father, who sent Me from the heavens into flesh and onto earth.
WITH THEE I MAKE THE PASCH. — That is, I have decreed to make it, I desire to make it.
Verse 19: And the Disciples Did as Jesus Had Appointed Them, and They Prepared the Pasch
19. AND THE DISCIPLES (Peter and John) DID AS JESUS HAD APPOINTED (Greek, συνέταξεν, that is, had ordained, commanded) THEM, AND THEY PREPARED THE PASCH, — that is, they slaughtered, flayed, and roasted the paschal lamb. Furthermore, the lamb to be roasted bore the image of Christ crucified. For, as Saint Justin teaches in Against Trypho, the body of the lamb was pierced by the spit, and the feet — both the hind feet which are in the place of feet, and the fore feet which are in the place of hands — were stretched out and spread apart by little rods fixed in the soles, as if the spit prefigured the upright beam of the cross, and the rods the cross-piece of wood, together with the nails fixed in the hands and feet of the divine Lamb: for the fire of affliction was no less here than the burning fire there. But I know not what wounds the lambs perpetually bear in the middles of the soles of their feet, not
in unlike manner to that in which our Savior preserves on His hands and feet from the cross the marks of the nails, says Franciscus Lucas. Wherefore Christ coming to the house and seeing the lamb being roasted, in it as in a living image of Himself was beholding His own crucifixion, in which He Himself was in like manner to be stretched out, fastened with nails, and on the next day to be roasted on the cross with the fire both of pain and yet more of love. Wherefore He offered this lamb as a type of Himself, and more — Himself — to God the Father with a great sense of inward burning, as a holocaust, and as a victim for the sins of the whole world. The Apostles understood the same after they saw Christ crucified.
Verse 20: And When It Was Evening, He Sat Down With His Twelve Disciples
20. AND WHEN IT WAS EVENING, HE SAT DOWN WITH HIS TWELVE DISCIPLES. — For according to the law, the lamb was to be eaten in the evening, and that by people standing, that the Hebrews might signify that they were ready for the journey and to set out from Egypt to the land of promise, namely to Canaan. See what is said in Exodus 12. Yet Jesus is said to have here reclined with His own, because the ancients about to dine reclined upon couches, that is the dining-bed-rests, lying with their bodies prone downward, but propped up on their elbows so as to sit beside the table. From which rite there has remained even now the phrase by which we are said to « lie at table, » that is to recline at table, when in our manner we sit at it. Mark in chapter 14:17 has: « And when evening was come He came with the twelve, » that is, with the whole college of the Apostles; though from this number He had already sent two ahead to prepare everything: therefore precisely He came with only the ten remaining; yet He is said to have come with the twelve, because those two, sent by Him a little before, had already arrived.
You will ask whether Judas the betrayer was present at the celebration of the Passover and the Eucharist, and whether he received it. Saint Hilary and Theophylact deny it here, as do Clement of Rome in book V of the Constitutions, chapter 16, and there Turrianus, and Innocent III the Pontiff in book IV On the Mystery of the Eucharist, chapter 13; Rupertus in book X on Matthew, near the end. Saint Dionysius seems to favor this view, in On the Ecclesiastical Hierarchy, chapter 3, beginning, and thus Saint Maximus and Pachymerus there explain him; but the same Saint Dionysius can easily be explained for the contrary opinion, for which Saint Thomas, Dionysius the Carthusian, and others cite him; Theophylact too may be expounded for either view. Their reason is that the betrayer was unworthy of such mysteries and was to be excluded from the sacred synaxis.
But that Judas was present at the Pasch and the Eucharist, and communicated with the other Apostles, is the common opinion of the rest of the Fathers and Doctors, namely Origen, Cyril, Chrysostom, Saint Ambrose, Saint Leo, Saint Cyprian, Saint Augustine, Rabanus, Bede, Saint Thomas, and others, whom Suarez cites and follows in the Third Part, question 73, article 5, disputation 41, section 3, where he also shows that Saint Dionysius is of the same mind. For Dionysius speaks thus: « And the very author of the symbols (Christ) most justly separates him who had not, like Himself nor in like manner, sat down at the sacred supper in simplicity, » as if to say:
Christ separates Judas from the company of His Apostles, saying: "What you are doing, do quickly," because he had unworthily received the sacred Eucharist with Him and supped with Him: for soon after the unworthy communion Satan entered into him, and impelled him to carry out the betrayal of Christ, as Saint Chrysostom teaches, Homilies 4 and 2 On the Betrayal of Judas; Saint Augustine, on Psalm X; and Cyril, Catechesis 13.
This opinion is proved: First, because Matthew here says that Christ reclined at the supper of the lamb and of the Eucharist with the twelve Apostles; therefore also with Judas, for he was one of the twelve. Whence, in verse 21, it follows: "And while they were eating, He said: Amen I say to you, that one of you is about to betray Me." Secondly, because Mark, XIV, 23, says of the chalice of the Eucharist: "And they all drank of it," namely the twelve Apostles, of whom he had said a little before, in verse 17, that they had come to this supper with Christ. Thirdly, because Luke, XXII, 21, says that Christ, immediately after the consecration of the chalice of the Eucharist, added: "But yet behold, the hand of him who betrays Me is with Me on the table;" therefore Judas was present. Fourthly, because John, XIII, 4, indicates that Christ, before the Eucharist, washed the feet of the Apostles, and in verses 10 and following, that He also washed the feet of Judas, saying: "You are clean, but not all. For He knew who it was that would betray Him." If Christ washed the feet of Judas, He also gave him the Eucharist, which was instituted by Him soon after; for this washing was directed toward it. Fifthly, because Christ after the supper of the Eucharist said that one of those reclining at table with Him, namely Judas, was His betrayer, as is plain in John XIII, 12, 18 and following; and when John asked Christ who the betrayer was, Christ replied there, in verse 26: "It is he to whom I shall give the bread that I dip." And when He had dipped the bread, He gave it to Judas the son of Simon Iscariot. And He adds, in verse 30: "When therefore he had taken the morsel, he went out immediately" to betray Christ to the Jews.
The a priori reason is this: although Christ could lawfully have disclosed to the Apostles the sin and betrayal of Judas, which was hidden from them, in order to manifest His divinity and His charity (both because He was the master of Judas's reputation, and because the betrayal of Judas would in any case be public elsewhere — namely among the chief priests and elders — and would shortly afterward be made known to the Apostles by the very deed and execution of the betrayal), nevertheless Christ did not wish to do this, that He might give an example of perfect charity, and that through it He might draw Judas to repentance. Finally, that He might teach that hidden sinners are not to be exposed, publicly disgraced, and defamed, and therefore not to be excluded from the sacred Synaxis. Wherefore, since Christ in instituting the Eucharist created the Apostles priests and Bishops, when He said: "Do this in commemoration of Me," it follows that He also made Judas, who was present, a priest and Bishop. Whence it is said of him in Psalm CVIII: "And let another take his bishopric." For Saint Peter, Acts I, applies this to Judas; and although there for "bishopric" the Hebrew has פקדתו [pequddatho], that is, his prefecture, namely his apostolate, yet nothing forbids "bishopric" from being taken in its proper sense, as Suarez takes it, Part III, Question LXXIII, article V, disputation XII, section 3. Finally, that no others than the twelve Apostles were present at this supper and Eucharist is clear from this: that here only twelve are named and reckoned — which note against Euthymius, who supposes that others were present too.
Verse 21: Amen I Say to You, That One of You Is About to Betray Me
21. AND WHILE THEY WERE EATING, HE SAID: AMEN I SAY TO YOU, THAT ONE OF YOU IS ABOUT TO BETRAY ME. — In Greek παραδώσει, that is, will hand Me over to the Jews, my enemies. So also the Syriac. Matthew narrates that Christ said this before the institution of the Eucharist; but Luke, chapter XXII, 21, after it, and this is the more accurate. For Christ did not wish to disturb the minds of His disciples before the Eucharist with so dreadful a message, but to gather and lift them all up, intent and devout, to the consideration of so great a Sacrament. Wherefore Matthew used prolepsis and anticipation, although Euthymius and Saint Augustine, On the Consensus of the Evangelists book III, chapter 1, think that Christ said this twice, namely both before and after the Eucharist. "Is about to betray Me," that is, will betray Me a few hours hence. Christ predicted this, both that He might show Himself aware of the betrayal, and signify that He suffered not unknowingly nor unwillingly, but of His own accord — whence He did not flee, but offered Himself to the betrayer; and also that He might prick the conscience of Judas and stir him to repentance. So Saint Jerome: "He casts the charge into the group, that the guilty one might do penance." Christ did not name Judas for three reasons: first, that He might preserve his reputation and teach us to do the same; second, lest Peter and the Apostles should rise up against Judas and tear him to pieces; third, that He might call Judas back to repentance by this gentleness and charity. Whence Saint Leo, sermon 7 On the Passion, says: "He showed that the conscience of the betrayer was known to Him, not confounding the impious one with a harsh and open rebuke, but convincing him with a gentle and silent warning, that He might more easily correct by repentance one whom no objection had marred." And shortly: "Return to your former self, and laying aside your fury come to your senses. Clemency invites you, salvation knocks at the door, life calls you back to life."
Verse 22: And Being Very Sorrowful, They Began Every One to Say: Is It I, Lord?
22. AND BEING VERY SORROWFUL (Syriac: "and they were grievously distressed"), THEY BEGAN EVERY ONE TO SAY: IS IT I, LORD? — The Syriac has mori, that is, "my Lord," namely most sweet and most desired. For they grieved exceedingly that Christ the Lord, their father and master, on whom they wholly depended, should be torn from them and die — and that through betrayal, and that this betrayal should be carried out by one of His own College of Apostles, which was the greatest injury, indignity, and infamy of the whole College. Hence these words of Christ pierced their hearts with grief like a sword, so that they "became half dead," as Saint Chrysostom says.
EVERY ONE. — Therefore Judas also, lest if he alone were silent,
by his silence betray himself to the rest of the Apostles, or render himself suspect of the crime. For, as Origen says, "I think that at first he supposed he could lie hidden, as though from a mere man; and after he saw that his conscience was known to Christ, he embraced the concealment placed in His very words — the first of which arose from infidelity, the second from impudence." The other Apostles likewise said: "Is it I, Lord?" — for although their conscience did not accuse them of so great a crime, yet, as Saint Chrysostom says (who took it from Saint Basil in his Shorter Rules, rule 301), they trusted Christ's words more than their own conscience, especially because, as Saint Augustine elsewhere says, "There is no sin which one man has done that another man may not also do, if there be lacking the Ruler by whom man was made."
Verse 23: He Who Dips His Hand With Me in the Dish, He Will Betray Me
23. BUT HE ANSWERING SAID: HE WHO DIPS HIS HAND WITH ME IN THE DISH (in the platter, so the Syriac), HE WILL BETRAY ME. — The Syriac has "is about to betray"; the Greek ὁ ἐμβάψας, in the aorist, "he who has dipped, who is accustomed to dip." It seems that Judas, in order to disguise his betrayal and to show himself the more friendly with Christ, often dipped bread or meat with Him into the platter of some broth, vinegar, or sauce; but since the other Apostles likewise did the same from time to time, the Apostles could not from these words of Christ know with certainty that Judas was being designated by Him as the betrayer. Hence by other questions they sought to have it explained to them by Christ.
Here note, for the harmony of the Evangelists, who relate the designation of Judas the betrayer in different ways, that this was the order of the history, which reconciles all the Evangelists with one another. First, Christ before the Eucharist, as is plain from Matthew and Mark, foretold that He would be betrayed by one of the Apostles; but generally and indefinitely, without naming or pointing out the betrayer. Then, when each of the Apostles asked: "Is it I, Lord?" Christ replied that the betrayer was the one who dipped his hand with Him into the dish; for as the ancients reclined in groups of three or four on the couches at table, as I have said on Esther 1:6, so groups of three or four had a common dish — indeed, those who reclined on opposite or adjacent couches could share the same dish. Therefore, since several Apostles had the same dish, by these words Christ did not definitely indicate who the betrayer was. Christ then instituted the Eucharist; and after this, He again said that His betrayer was with Him at table, as Luke expressly narrates, on which see more on John XIII, 21. Wherefore Peter signaled to John, who was reclining on Christ's bosom, that he should ask Him who definitely and by name was the betrayer. To John's question Christ replied that it was the one to whom He would give the morsel; and soon He gave it to Judas. He, having received it, from the consciousness of his crime and from this sign of Christ, perceiving that he was being marked out, impudently and obstinately asked: "Is it I, Rabbi?" Christ replied: "Thou hast said it," that is, "thou art he"; wherefore he, being entirely detected and
seeing himself put to shame, as if mad and raging, went out to carry out the betrayal of Christ, and went off to the house of Caiaphas, in order to demand from him lictors and attendants to arrest Christ.
Verse 24: The Son of Man Indeed Goes, as It Is Written of Him
24. THE SON OF MAN INDEED GOES, AS IT IS WRITTEN OF HIM: BUT WOE TO THAT MAN BY WHOM THE SON OF MAN SHALL BE BETRAYED: IT WERE BETTER FOR HIM IF THAT MAN HAD NOT BEEN BORN. — For "it is far better not to exist than to exist badly. The punishment is foretold, that the threatened torments may correct him whom shame had not overcome," says Saint Jerome. For He threatens him with the woe of damnation and Gehenna: for it is far better not to be, than to be only for this — that he should always be most wretched and burn perpetually in Gehenna, as I have shown on Ecclesiastes IV, verses 2 and 3. Wisely Saint Jerome, in his letter to Furia: "In Christians, beginnings are not sought, but the end. Paul began badly, but ended well; Judas's beginnings are praised, but his end is condemned by his betrayal."
GOES. — "By these words," says Victor of Antioch on Mark chapter XIV, verse 21, "Christ shows His death to be more like a passing over or a departure than a true death. By the same word He also signifies that He goes to death of His own accord." Moreover, the betrayal of Judas was a monstrous sacrilege, committed directly against the very person of Christ and of God: wherefore it was truly the murder of Christ and the murder of God. For this reason it is highly probable that Judas dwells in the deepest part of Gehenna near Lucifer, and is there most bitterly tormented. And this is signified by the τὸ "woe" which Christ here directs against him beyond other reprobates. Hence Blessed Francis Borgia, humbling himself to the utmost in meditation, placed himself at the feet of Judas — that is, most deeply in hell — saying that nowhere else, neither in heaven, nor on earth, nor under the earth, could he find a place suited to himself and due to his sins. Thus his Life records.
Verse 25: And Judas Answering Said: Is It I, Rabbi? He Said to Him: You Have Said It
25. AND JUDAS WHO BETRAYED HIM (the Arabic: "Judas his betrayer"; the Syriac: "Judas the traitor") ANSWERING SAID: IS IT I, RABBI (O Master)? HE SAID TO HIM (Christ): THOU HAST SAID IT. — Francis Lucas probably thinks that Judas asked this after Christ, having handed him the morsel of bread, had pointed him out as the betrayer to John (John XIII, 26), as I said on verse 23.
Furthermore, Judas asks this out of pride and impudence, that he might cover his crime, and «with boldness feign a good conscience,» as Saint Jerome says; for he supposed that Christ, out of modesty and gentleness, would not name the author of the crime — as if to say: "Am I, O Christ, your betrayer, who have faithfully served you for so many years, fed your household, and managed all your affairs?" For, as Saint Leo says (sermon 7 On the Passion), "in body alone he reclined with those at supper, but in mind he was arming the envy of the priests, the falsehood of the witnesses, and the fury of the ignorant crowd."
THOU HAST SAID IT. — This is a modest reply of the Hebrews, by which they confirm what is being asked, as if to say: There is no need for me to say it and to name you the betrayer:
for you yourself say and name yourself such, and say truly, because you truly are the betrayer. Hence Saint Chrysostom extols the gentleness of Christ, who from righteous anger did not say: "You wretch, you sacrilegious one, you ungrateful traitor, you are plotting My death"; but gently: "Thou hast said it: thus He has set for us the bounds and rules of tolerance and forgetfulness of injuries," says Saint Chrysostom, and after him Titus. Hence by this gentleness, by His soft and lowered voice, and still more by His inward grace, Christ restrained John and Peter, and any others who heard, lest they rise up against Judas and tear him apart, especially because Christ did not clearly say: "Thou art he," but obscurely: "Thou hast said it."
Verse 26: Jesus Took Bread, and Blessed It, and Broke It, and Said: This Is My Body
26. AND WHILE THEY WERE EATING, JESUS TOOK BREAD, AND BLESSED IT, AND BROKE IT, AND GAVE IT TO HIS DISCIPLES, AND SAID: TAKE, AND EAT, THIS IS MY BODY. — So also the Syriac, Arabic, and Persian. The Ethiopic translates more emphatically: "This same flesh of Mine." The Egyptian adds "for": "For this is My body." The others, then, supply the τὸ "for": that this must be supplied here is sufficiently clear from the consecration of the wine, in verse 28: "For this is My blood." The word "for" gives the reason why they ought to eat and drink — namely, because the body and blood of Christ are offered to them by Him to be eaten and drunk. For who would not most eagerly receive food and drink so precious and divine?
WHILE THEY WERE EATING. — That is, after the supper, as Luke and Paul have it — namely the supper of the paschal lamb — but while they were still reclining at the table set with viands; and therefore Matthew says "while they were eating." Here note that there were three suppers of Christ here: the first, the sacred supper of the paschal lamb, which according to the law (Exodus XII) Christ and the Apostles celebrated standing; the second, the common one of other foods after the lamb, which they ate reclining on couches in the customary manner of their nation: for all the persons of the family could not be satisfied from the lamb alone, especially if it were a large and numerous one; wherefore after the supper of the lamb a common or ordinary supper of other foods was added; and Christ added a third, most sacred — indeed, divine — namely the institution of the Eucharist. For Christ before the Eucharist ate the lamb and the ordinary meal, because it was fitting that the type of the lamb should precede the truth of the Eucharist, and that the Eucharist should be His final memorial as He was about to die, as a supreme pledge of love. This is what Luke and Paul mean when they say "after supper." So Jansenius, Maldonatus, Franciscus Lucas and others, although Suarez (in the passage to be cited shortly) holds that the supper of the Eucharist was midway between the supper of the lamb and the ordinary one. But now, out of reverence for so great a Sacrament, the Apostolic tradition holds, says Saint Augustine in epistle 128, that the Eucharist should be received only by those who are fasting. Wherefore the heretics wrongly and deceitfully call the Eucharist a "supper," even though the early Christians for a time celebrated the Eucharist at supper after Christ's example, as is gathered from Paul, I Corinthians XI, 25. Furthermore, in place of and in memory of the second ordinary and common supper, which Paul calls the Lord's Supper, there once succeeded among Christians the Agape — that is, a meal common to all as a sign and nourishment of charity, but after the reception of the Eucharist.
Finally, Christ, after the supper of the lamb and the common or ordinary supper, before the institution of the Eucharist, washed the feet of the disciples — even Judas — to signify with what purity one ought to approach so great mysteries, as is plain from John XIII, 4. After the washing was complete, He consecrated the bread and wine which were still on the table, and changed them into the Eucharist — that is, into His body and blood. Hence it is gathered that Christ instituted the Eucharist about the first or second hour of the night. For the lamb, which was to be eaten in the evening, could be eaten in one hour or even sooner, and in another hour the feet of the Apostles could easily be washed by Christ, so that He instituted the Eucharist about the second hour of the night. That this was done at the beginning of the night is plain from what was then done that very night. For after the reception of the Eucharist Judas went out to summon the officers of the chief priests to arrest Christ. Meanwhile Christ delivered a long discourse, which John records in chapters XIV, XV, XVI and XVII. When this was finished, He went out to the Mount of Olives and there prayed at length, and then was betrayed by Judas and captured by the Jews, and dragged back from Gethsemane to Jerusalem, was led to Annas, then to Caiaphas, and finally for a great part of the rest of the night was struck on the cheek by the servants of the priests, spat upon, and mocked: by the servants, I say, who were waiting for the light and the day, in order to present Christ to Pilate to be condemned. Therefore it seems that Christ instituted the Eucharist about the beginning of the night of Thursday. So Suarez, Part III, Question LXXIII, article V, disputation 41, section 4.
Finally hear the Council of Trent, session 22, chapter 1: "Christ, having celebrated the ancient Passover, which the multitude of the sons of Israel were sacrificing in memory of their departure out of Egypt, instituted a new Passover, namely Himself, to be sacrificed by the Church through her priests under visible signs, in memory of His own passage from this world to the Father, when by the shedding of His blood He redeemed us, and rescued us from the power of darkness, and transferred us into His kingdom."
JESUS TOOK BREAD. — Note first here the five actions of Christ. First, Christ took bread; second, He gave thanks to the Father; third, He blessed the bread, as Saint Matthew has it in chapter XXVI, 26; fourth, He broke the bread; fifth, He held it forth, and while holding it forth said: "Take and eat, this is My body." For these words are as much the words of one who hands forth as of one who consecrates. Hence Calvin's argument falls to the ground: "All these words," he says, "namely 'took,' 'blessed,' 'broke,' 'gave,' refer back to the bread; therefore the Apostles received and ate bread, not the body of Christ." I reply to the antecedent: these words refer to bread — not bread which after being handed over remained bread, but that which during the giving, by the power of Christ's words and consecration, was being converted into
the body of Christ. Christ could have spoken in this way at Cana of Galilee: "Take and drink, for this is wine," if by these words He had wished to change water into wine. So we commonly say: "Herod imprisoned, killed, and buried Saint John," or "allowed him to be buried," although he did not imprison the same one whom he buried; for he imprisoned a man, but buried the corpse of one who had been slain. Of such a kind, then, and consequently equally common, is this manner of speaking of the Evangelists and of Paul concerning the Eucharist.
Note secondly, from the fact that Christ said: "Take, for this is" etc., that Christ seems to have taken one loaf of bread and during the consecration to have broken it into twelve parts, and to have distributed one to each of the Apostles, which each seems to have received in his hand. Hence too in the Church for a long time the Eucharist was given into the hands of the faithful Christians, as is clear from Tertullian, On the Spectacles; from Cyril of Jerusalem, Catechesis 5, Mystagogical; from Saint Augustine, sermon 244. Afterward, however, for reasons of danger and of reverence, the Eucharist was given into the mouth.
Finally, the Apostles were not amazed or troubled at so extraordinary an action of Christ and at so new and wondrous a Sacrament, for two reasons. First, because they had already been instructed and forewarned in John VI, as Chrysostom teaches in homily 83 on Matthew. The other, because the same Christ who delivered the mysteries was illuminating their mind by faith, that they might simply believe. For they had heard and believed many other more marvelous things without being troubled — such as, in the first place, that this Man whom they saw eating, drinking, sleeping, and growing weary was true God; and that He was even then in heaven while He was speaking on earth and saying, in John III: "No one has ascended into heaven except He who descended from heaven, the Son of Man, who is in heaven."
HE BLESSED. — Note that Christ, before the consecration of the Eucharist, first gave thanks to God the Father, as Luke and Paul have it, and that with His eyes lifted up to heaven according to His custom, as is contained in our Canon and in the Liturgy of Saint James. Hence this Sacrament has been called the Eucharist — that is, the giving of thanks — because it is itself the greatest grace, and consequently is to be received with the greatest thanksgiving.
Secondly, that Christ blessed not the Father, as the heretics maintain, but the bread and wine, as Paul expressly has it here when he says: "The cup of blessing which we bless," etc., I Corinthians. Now Christ blessed the bread and the cup — that is, He invoked the blessing and omnipotence of God upon the bread and wine — that it might be ready and present for all future consecrations as well, to convert the bread into the body and the wine of the chalice into the blood of Christ, whenever the words of consecration are lawfully pronounced. The blessing of the loaves in Luke IX, 16, was similar. This blessing, then, was not the consecration, although Saint Thomas, Part III, Question LXXVIII, article 1, ad 1, holds it to be so, but a preliminary prayer. So the Council of Trent, session 13, chapter 1; whence in the Liturgy of Saint James,
of Basil, and our own, after Christ's example we ask that God may bless these gifts, that the divine power may descend upon the bread and chalice to perfect the consecration; and hence it is called the "cup of blessing," that is, blessed by Christ. Hence Paul, I Corinthians X, 16: "The cup of blessing," he says, "which we bless, is it not the communion of the blood of Christ?"
Finally, it seems that Christ blessed the bread by making the sign of the cross over it, and in blessing it invoked God's aid for the future consecration and transubstantiation. For according to the usage of the Church, priests at the consecration bless the bread and wine with the sign of the cross, and they do this after the example of Christ.
THIS IS MY BODY. — Hence it is clear that in the Eucharist there is not a figure of the body of Christ, as the Novelists pervert it, but the true and proper body of Christ, which was born of the Blessed Virgin and crucified on Mount Calvary, as the Church has believed in every age and has defined in many Councils, as I have shown at length on I Corinthians XI, 24, where Paul in the same words repeats and recounts the institution of the Eucharist by Christ. To which add that some are torn away from this faith because they cannot comprehend how the body of Christ, so lofty and great, can be wholly contained under a tiny host: but these ought to consider that God is omnipotent, who, just as He instituted nature, so often works supernaturally against her when He wills, in order to show Himself the Lord and God of nature and of all things. Wherefore, whatever there is of property in nature, this God can invert and overturn; and consequently God can bring it about that a great quantity be contained in a small space, indeed in a point. This is the Theological reason. But to satisfy fully the weak minds of some, I shall subjoin two evident arguments of this mystery — that it is possible — which derive their force from a similar analogy.
Take, then, an analogical, as it were, demonstration of this matter — first a physical, second a mathematical. The physical one is found in a mirror and in the eye. For both a mirror and a tiny eye receive within themselves the entire size not only of the largest men, but also of houses, temples, trees, mountains, and so on, and they clearly reproduce and represent it whole. Why then should not the small host, by God's working, present Christ entire? You will say: this happens in the eye and the mirror spiritually, by means of optical or visual intentional species. I reply: In a similar manner the body of Christ in the Eucharist takes on a spiritual mode of existing, so that as it were a spirit it is spiritually in the point of the host. Add that these intentional species themselves are not so spiritual that they are not in reality natural and physical entities — indeed, corporeal: for they inhere in a body, namely the air; yet we see very many and as it were infinite of them received and comprehended at the same time in a mirror and in the eye. If this happens daily, naturally, in the species received by the eye, much more can the same be done
by the omnipotence of God supernaturally in the body of Christ through a miracle in the Eucharist.
Take now, of the same matter, an analogical, as it were, mathematical demonstration, that you may see how a great quantity can be wholly contained in a small one — indeed, in any single point of it. Take, I say, this twofold figure, of a triangle alone, and of a triangle with a circle; let us first inspect the triangle alone, then the same with a circle: for the host in the Eucharist is circular, indeed a circle.
In this triangle A F X, in the angle X all the lines drawn from the side A F meet — namely line A, line B, line C, line D, line E, line F — and so the angle X and its cone or point corresponds to and receives all these lines, and in the same way will receive a thousand or even infinite others, which from the side A, F, can be drawn from any point on it down to X: for from any point to any point a straight line can be drawn, as the principle of Euclid and of all the Mathematicians has it. You see then one point X receiving all these lines, and thus as it were being commensurate with and equal to each individual line, and consequently to the whole line A, F, and consequently the same point X is as it were equal to the whole surface that is enclosed in this triangle; for this surface consists of and is composed of a great many continuous lines, all of which are received in this point X. Let us now suppose this length A, F, to be the length of the body of Christ, and X to be the point of the consecrated host; I say in like manner that the whole length of the body of Christ is in this point of the host, just as the whole length A, F, is in the point X by the lines derived from it. But if the Novelists,
indeed if the Physicists and Mathematicians cannot comprehend how one such great line is received in an indivisible point, and consequently how the whole surface, which is drawn from its extremity on both sides through the triangle to the same point, is by lines drawn to it commensurate with and as it were equated to that point — which nevertheless is natural; what wonder is it if they do not comprehend how the quantity of the body of Christ can be received in the point of the host by the supernatural action and omnipotence of God, which transcends nature and every natural understanding?
Now let us inspect the form of the circle here depicted, and compare it with the triangle: the length of the side of the triangle D, E, F, G, H, I, is wholly received by its lines in the circle of the host, and in its point A; the same whole length is received by other of its lines in point C; the same whole length is received in like manner by other lines in any other point of the circle drawn. Therefore just as in this figure the whole length D, I, can be received in any point of the circle (or of the host) by its lines drawn to that point and meeting there together; so the whole length of the body of Christ can be received, and in fact is received, in any point of the consecrated host. For if in natural things we see the line D, I, made commensurate with point C in the circle A, B, C; likewise with point A, and with point B, and with any other: why not
in the supernatural mysteries of the Eucharist could God do the same? — namely that the whole quantity of the body of Christ be in this point of the host, and the whole in that, and the whole in any other point of the host whatsoever. To see this more clearly, conceive in your mind that the circle of the host is rotated and revolved through points A, B, C; then behold, the individual points of this circle will successively touch the cone, indeed they themselves will be the cone or point — both A and B and C — and therefore those very points A, B, C will receive all the lines drawn from the side D, I, to themselves. What there would happen successively, here happens at once and all at one time in the host of the Eucharist and in all its points with respect to the body of Christ, which the individual points of the host receive whole. For the circle represents the host, but the triangle represents the body of Christ.
Add here a third demonstration from condensation and rarefaction, which I have related on I Corinthians XI, 23. For water in a pot, condensed by cold, occupies only half the pot, but when heated by fire, becoming rarefied and boiling, fills the whole pot, although it is the same water in respect of matter, mass, and (as many great philosophers will have it) of intrinsic quantity: for nothing is added to the water by rarefaction except extension to a greater place. If this happens naturally, why could not God, the omnipotent, do the same supernaturally in the body of Christ — that this body, intrinsically extended to six feet within itself, should yet extrinsically be made commensurate with a small host, and be contracted to its place and quantity? Just as water rarefied by the heat of fire and occupying the whole pot is then by cold condensed and contracted back to half the pot: for that nothing of quantity accrues to the water by rarefaction, nor departs by condensation, but that the same quantity which was before merely unfolds itself further and extends to a larger place, is the opinion of Saint Thomas, Gregory, Aegidius, Capreolus, Soncinas, whom our Conimbricenses cite and follow, On Generation book I, chapter V, Question XVII, article 3.
Luke adds, chapter XXII, 19: "This is My body, which is given for you," that is, will soon be given over to the cross and to death. Paul, I Corinthians XI: "Which shall be delivered for you," in Greek κλώμενον, that is, "which is broken." See what is said there.
Luke again adds that Christ said: "Do this in commemoration of Me." By these words Christ gave to the Apostles and to the priests to be ordained by them the power (as well as the precept) of consecrating and transubstantiating bread into His body and wine into His blood. Wherefore by these words Christ constituted and ordained the Apostles priests, as the Council of Trent teaches (session 22, chapter 1), as well as bishops. For by these words He commanded the Apostles, as Bishops, to ordain priests who continuously and uninterruptedly throughout all ages should celebrate both the sacrament and the sacrifice of the Eucharist, which He here instituted: both for the perpetual praise and worship of God; and for the spiritual refreshment of the faithful; and that through it they might ask of God every grace and obtain it for the Church, as the dogma and faith of the whole Church holds. "Do this," therefore — namely, what I am doing — as if to say: Consecrate, sacrifice, transubstantiate the bread and wine, eat, just as I have consecrated, sacrificed, transubstantiated, and eaten the same. Moreover, ordain priests and Bishops who in continuous succession may do the same until the end of the world, just as I now for this cause institute and ordain you priests and bishops.
IN MEMORY OF ME. — That is, that in the consecration and reception of the Eucharist you may commemorate, and, as Paul says, I Corinthians XI, 26, you may announce My death. See what is said there. For consecrating priests are not bidden here merely to remember Christ's death, but also to recall the same to the Christian people, that they may be perpetually mindful of and grateful for so great a benefit, and for so great a condescension and redemption of Christ, and through it may ask and obtain from God every grace.
Verse 27: Taking the Chalice He Gave Thanks, and Gave to Them, Saying: Drink Ye All of This
27. AND TAKING THE CHALICE HE GAVE THANKS, AND GAVE TO THEM, SAYING: DRINK YE ALL OF THIS. — Bellarmine, in book IV On the Eucharist, chapter XXVII, ad 2, and John Hessels, in the treatise On Communion under Both Species, are of the opinion that Christ did not consecrate the chalice immediately after consecrating the bread, but that several things came in between — namely, several actions and sayings; they prove this from the fact that of the bread Matthew says: "And while they were eating;" but of the chalice Luke and Paul say: "In like manner also the chalice, after He had supped."
But it is far more accurate that Christ immediately after the consecration of the bread subjoined the consecration of the chalice, both because Matthew, Mark, and Luke so narrate; and because the reason of the sacrament and sacrifice of the Eucharist required this — that it should not be divided, nor interrupted, but should be wholly accomplished at once. For the consecration of both wine and bread belongs to the essence of the sacrifice. For Christ instituted this sacrifice in the manner of a meal and a banquet, for which both wine for drink and bread for food are required. So also in the Old Testament, to the sacrifice of "mincha," that is, of meal-offering and loaves, and equally to that of animal victims (e.g. oxen, lambs, kids), there was added a libation, that is, a pouring out of wine and oil. For the sacrifice is offered to God that it may be God's refreshment; and for refreshment, drink as much as food is required — namely, wine as much as bread — as I have shown on Leviticus chapter 1 and following. The same was the rite of the Gentiles, who borrowed this and many other things from Moses and the Hebrews.
HE GAVE THANKS. — I have related the rite of the Hebrews in giving thanks to God after a meal on Ecclesiasticus XXXII, 17.
DRINK YE ALL OF THIS. — Christ said this before the consecration of the chalice. Wherefore in Mark, chapter XIV, 23, there is hysterologia (an inversion of order), when he says: "And they all drank of
St. Cyprian (or whoever the author may be) notes, in his treatise On the Lord's Supper, that formerly the eating and drinking of the blood of animals was forbidden to the Jews, as is clear from Hebrews ix, 22 and Leviticus iv, 6 ff.: but that the blood of Christ is now poured forth as a libation by priests: first, because the blood of Christ is life-giving; second, because by it we have been redeemed; third, because, having been made spiritual by it, we shudder at the sins of the animal life as at impure blood.
Verse 28: This Is My Blood of the New Testament, Which Shall Be Shed for Many
28. FOR THIS IS MY BLOOD OF THE NEW TESTAMENT (Syriac: of the new covenant), WHICH SHALL BE SHED FOR MANY UNTO THE REMISSION OF SINS. — So also the Arabic, Persian, and Egyptian; but the Ethiopic more vigorously: This is My very blood, etc. As if to say: In this chalice, by this My consecration, the wine is changed into My blood: wherefore at the end of this consecration there is no longer wine in it, but My blood, by which is established and confirmed the New Testament and covenant entered into between God and men through My mediation. For Christ, by this His blood about to be shed in death shortly afterward, has merited and confirmed for us the right and the hope of an eternal inheritance in heaven, which was Christ the testator's highest and last will; and this right is applied to us by the Sacraments, especially the Eucharist, just as a written testament gives the heir the right to the testator's goods.
Note: Christ divided the consecrated bread into thirteen portions, of which He Himself first took one, and then divided and gave the remaining twelve, one each, to be received by the individual Apostles. In the chalice, however, being a liquid, this could not be done. For this reason Christ first drank from it after it was consecrated, then gave it to drink to His neighbor, e.g. St. John or Peter, commanding him to pass it on to his own neighbor, and so on in succession, so that the chalice should go round and all the Apostles should drink from it. Hence it does not follow, as the Hussites and Luther wish, that the chalice should also be given to the laity, and that they ought to communicate under both species because Christ and the Apostles communicated under both, and that this is a command of Christ: for this command of drinking, when He says, "Drink ye all of this" (as the Church has always understood), pertained only to the Apostles, who alone were then present, because Christ was then consecrating them as priests and commanded them to consecrate the sacrament and sacrifice of the Eucharist under both species, and to receive both species, in order to complete a perfect sacrifice (1). He did not therefore command this of the laity, for whom — since they do not sacrifice but only receive the Eucharist as a sacrament — it suffices that they receive it under one species, because under it they receive the entire effect and fruit of the Sacrament; especially since in so great a number of communicating laity the chalice would easily be spilled, and the blood of Christ contained in it would flow upon the ground, which would be of great irreverence. In a similar way the command of Christ saying, "Do this in remembrance of Me," insofar as it regards the consecration, pertains to priests alone; but as regards the reception of the consecrated bread, it pertains also to the laity, as is evident. For when many precepts are mixed together, their variety must be limited and distributed according to the condition of the persons and the mind of the lawgiver, who here is Christ, of whose mind the Church is the interpreter.
Note first: Matthew and Mark have: "For this is My blood of the new testament;" but Luke and Paul, in 1 Corinthians xi, 25, have: "This chalice is the new testament in My blood;" yet the meaning of either expression is the same. Christ, however, seems rather to have spoken in the manner narrated by Matthew and Mark, because that phrasing is clearer. See what is said on 1 Cor. xi, 25. Christ, in the Last Supper rather than on the Cross, by instituting the Eucharist, established and ratified His testament and covenant with the Church. For here were present all the Apostles, who bore and represented the person of the Church; Christ was free, yet near to death; there was a victim and blood, by which covenants are wont to be ratified.
Note second: In the form of the consecration of the chalice which we now use in the sacrifice of the Mass, these words are added, "of the eternal testament, the mystery of faith," which Innocent III, Book IV, Chapter ix, and St. Thomas, III Part, Question LXXVIII, Article 2, ad 4, teach to have been received by tradition from St. Peter, who is the author of our liturgy. For although they do not pertain to the essence of the form (although St. Thomas seems to say so on 1 Cor. xi), whence they are omitted in the liturgies of St. James, St. Chrysostom, St. Clement, and St. Basil, nevertheless they pertain to its full integrity; and this is the common understanding of the entire Latin Church, which in the Mass and in the form of the consecration of the chalice writes and pronounces these words as if spoken by Christ and commanded by the Apostles, in the same tenor and manner as the rest.
Where note: "the mystery of faith" signifies first, that the blood of Christ hidden under the species of wine is a hidden reality which is known and believed by faith alone. Second, that the very blood of Christ,
insofar as it was poured forth in His Passion, is the object of the faith by which we are justified: for we believe that we are justified and cleansed from sins through the merit of the blood and death of Christ.
WHICH SHALL BE SHED FOR MANY, — that is, for all men; for they are all very many; Luke has "for you."
SHALL BE SHED. — In Greek, both in Matthew and in Mark and Luke, it is ἐκχυνόμενον in the present tense, that is "is being shed," that is, is offered and poured as a libation, namely in this sacrifice of the Eucharist under the species of wine, and shortly afterward shall be shed in its own species and natural form, the form of blood, on the Cross. For the blood of victims used to be shed in the very sacrifice itself, and thus poured out as a libation to God. Hence the very pouring is called libation or libamen: wherefore this chalice of Christ's blood, as a libation of Christ's sacrifice, was poured into the mouths of Christ and His Apostles. And for this reason the reception and consumption of the species both of bread and of wine pertains to the very nature and perfection of the sacrifice.
Hence then it is clear that the Eucharist is not only a sacrament, but also a sacrifice, and indeed the one sacrifice of the new law which has succeeded all those of the old, and which contains them all eminently in itself; and therefore Christ is called "a Priest according to the order of Melchisedech," not of Aaron, because Aaron offered sheep and goats, but Melchisedech offered bread and wine, just as Christ does by transubstantiating them into His own body and blood, Psalm cix, 4; Hebrews v, 6-7. The Eucharist therefore is, first, a holocaust; second, a victim for sin; third, a peace-offering; fourth, it is the «mincha» or grain-offering, Leviticus ii ff.
That this is so is clear: First, because Christ does not say of His blood that it is poured into many as a Sacrament; but that it is shed for many as a libation and sacrifice.
Second, because in Greek it is ἐκχυνόμενον in the present tense in all three Evangelists, that is, "is being shed," namely now in this Supper and consecration of the Eucharist: therefore He speaks of the present sacrifice of the Eucharist, not only of the future one on the Cross; and so St. Ambrose reads and understands it on Psalm xxxviii, 1. Our own translator, however, renders it "shall be shed," because he looks to the sacrifice of the Cross which was shortly to take place, in which most clearly and most perfectly Christ's blood was shed for the salvation of sinners, of which this sacramental shedding of Christ's blood in the Eucharist was the type and figure; and so this and that were typically one and the same.
Third, because Luke, and from him Paul, in the consecration of the bread, "This is My body," add: "which is given for you," that is, offered in sacrifice; Paul: "which is broken for you," namely both under the species of bread in the Eucharist, and properly in Himself when shortly afterward He shall be broken on the Cross by scourges and nails and the lance. Hence Paul calls the Eucharist "the bread which we break," namely in the Sacrament, that is, breaking and eating the species of bread and offering them to God in sacrifice, by receiving and consuming them — none of which was done on the Cross. Therefore to break bread signifies a sacrifice, not of the Cross, but of the Eucharist.
Fourth, because Luke explicitly has τοῦτο τὸ ποτήριον ἡ καινὴ διαθήκη ἐν τῷ αἵματί μου, τὸ ὑπὲρ ὑμῶν ἐκχυνόμενον, that is, "this cup is the new testament in My blood, which" — namely the cup — "shall be shed for you." For the τὸ ἐκχυνόμενον must be referred to ποτήριον, not to αἵματι, since αἵματι is in the dative case, while τὸ is in the nominative. Therefore the cup, or chalice of Christ's blood, has been shed for us; but the chalice of blood was shed in the Eucharist, not on the Cross (for there there was no chalice): therefore the shedding of the blood is a libation and a sacrifice.
Hence it is clear that these things pertain more properly to the Eucharistic sacrifice than to that of the Cross, and prove it against the Innovators.
The sacrifice of the Eucharist therefore is a holocaust, because we offer the whole Christ to God in the consecration and consumption. The same is a peace-offering, because through it we ask of God peace, that is, all goods, and obtain them. The same is a sin-offering, because it is offered and obtains from God the remission of venial sins and of temporal punishments which remain to be paid by the sinner for his mortal faults that have been forgiven: but the remission of those mortal faults themselves it obtains mediately, because it obtains from God prevenient grace and contrition, by which they are blotted out. See the Council of Trent, Session 22, Chapter ii. See also St. Thomas and the Scholastics in their treatise On the Sacrifice of the Eucharist.
Finally, the remission of sins is attributed to the blood of Christ rather than to His body, although it belongs to both: both because in the Old Testament expiation is attributed to the blood, and in the sin-offering its blood was poured out; and because by the shedding of the blood is signified the death of Christ, which was the worthy price, expiation, and satisfaction for the present and eternal death due to our sins.
The first cause, then, which moved Christ to institute the Eucharist, was that He might institute in the new law a most excellent, indeed divine Sacrament by which He might feed the faithful with divine food, and indeed by which the Church might most highly and worthily worship God, and ceaselessly honor Him, and adore Him with the worship of latria; worthily, I say, that is, as much as God deserves to be worshiped and honored. For the victim which is offered to God in the sacrifice of the Eucharist is of immense value, and is commensurate and equal to God Himself. For the victim is Christ Himself, who is both God and man; therefore God Himself is offered to God. Wherefore, since every other worship of ours, as of creatures, is meager and lowly, Christ has made Himself a victim in the Eucharist, so that through it, as being equal to God, we might render to God an equal worship, and might exhibit to Him as great a worship of latria as He Himself is worthy of, and as much as He of His own right requires. Furthermore, this sacrifice consists chiefly
in the consecration: for through it Christ is mystically slain, while His body and blood are placed separately under the species of bread and wine, as Suarez and Lessius teach from St. Gregory, Irenæus, Gregory of Nyssa, and others, in Book XII On the Divine Perfections, Chapter XIII, numbers 94 ff. "Separately," understand, so far as the force of the consecration is concerned: for by concomitance, where the body of Christ is, there also is His blood, and vice versa.
The second cause was that He might continually leave to us the image of His life and Passion as a testament, which life should ceaselessly refresh in each individual the memory of so great a redemption and condescension: for in the Eucharist the blood of Christ is consecrated separately, and His body separately, in order to signify His Passion, in which the blood of Christ was poured out and separated from His body; therefore the species of wine represent the shed blood of Christ, while the species of bread represent the lifeless body of Christ. This is what Christ says: "Do this in remembrance of Me;" and Paul, 1 Cor. xi, 26: "As often," he says, "as you shall eat this bread, and drink the chalice, you shall show forth the death of the Lord, until He come."
The third cause was the greatness of Christ's love toward His own faithful, by which, just as He united our flesh hypostatically to His divinity in the Incarnation, so also He unites and as it were incorporates the same flesh together with His divinity sacramentally in the Eucharist to each communicating faithful, so that the communicant himself becomes divine and as it were another Christ and God. This is what John, xiii, 1, says about Him as He was about to institute the Eucharist, before the washing of the feet: "Jesus knowing that His hour was come, that He should pass out of this world to the Father, having loved His own who were in the world, He loved them unto the end." "Unto the end," both of life and of love, that is, He loved them with the utmost and highest love, while He left Himself to them in the Eucharist, that they might always have Him present, with whom they may converse, to whom they may speak, whom they may consult, to whom they may open all their difficulties, temptations, and tribulations, and from whom they may ask and obtain help. For as He Himself says in Proverbs viii, 31: "My delights were to be with the children of men." Hence, as the Church sings from St. Thomas:
Born for us, He gave Himself as our companion, At the banquet, as our food, Dying, as our ransom, Reigning, He gives Himself as our reward.
so that by this supreme love He might draw us, indeed compel us, to love Him in return ardently. For love is the magnet of love. Let us therefore give ourselves wholly to Him, who first, being God, gave Himself wholly to us, and gives Himself daily. For this reason St. Cyprian, Book IV, Epistle 6 to Thibaris on the exhortation to martyrdom, says: "A graver and fiercer battle now threatens, for which the soldiers of Christ must prepare themselves with incorrupt virtue and robust faith, considering on this account that they daily drink the chalice of the blood of Christ, that they themselves also may pour forth their blood for Christ." This was the sharp goad which roused St. Lawrence to the flames, St. Vincent to the rack, St. Sebastian to the arrows, St. Ignatius to the lions, and the rest of the Martyrs to bear bravely and overcome any torments and pains, so that they might render love for love, life for life, death for death to Christ: for this reason they sought after martyrdoms, and in them rejoiced and triumphed. And this was an effect of the Eucharist. For it gave them strength and joy in all temptations and torments. For this reason in former times, in the time of persecutions, all Christians communicated daily, in order to strengthen themselves for martyrdom; indeed, they brought the Eucharist home, and in the morning received it with their own hands (as Mary Stuart, Queen of Scotland, recently did, while she was held captive in England and could not have a priest with her). For this reason Christ instituted the Eucharist before His Passion, in order that by it He might arm the Apostles against the temptations that should then come upon them.
The fourth cause was that Christ should give us in the Eucharist the exercise of every virtue: for in it our faith is exercised, while we believe that the whole true God and man is hidden and contained under the small host invisibly, but really and truly. Hope is exercised, because while we believe that Christ gives Himself to us, we hope that He will also give us all other things, which are far less. Charity is exercised, because the Eucharist is a furnace of love, which Christ breathes forth and breathes upon us so that we may love Him in return. Religion is exercised, because we adore Him and invoke Him with the worship of latria, and offer Christ Himself to Him in sacrifice. Humility is exercised, because we renounce our eyes and senses and natural judgment, which tell us that there is nothing in the Eucharist but bread and wine, and humbly submit to Christ saying: "This is My body: This is My blood." Gratitude is exercised, because through it we render the greatest thanks to God for all His benefits, and for that reason the Eucharist itself is so called, that is, "the act of giving thanks." Abstinence, because it is not lawful to communicate except while fasting. Patience and mortification, because the living mirror and spur of both is Christ suffering and crucified. And so of the other [virtues].
The tropological cause was that, by feeding and delighting us with His divine flesh, He might call us away from our earthly flesh and its delights and concupiscences, so that we might lead a life not carnal, but spiritual and divine, and might say with Paul: "And I live, now not I; but Christ liveth in me," Galatians ii, 20. So then ought a Christian to live, speak, and act, just as if not he himself, but Christ in him, were living, speaking, and acting. Let him therefore live as an angel: for "man hath eaten the bread of angels," Psalm lxxvii. Hence St. Cyril of Jerusalem, in Mystagogical Catechesis 4, says that in the sacred synaxis we are made co-bodied and co-blooded with Christ; for, as Christ says: "He that eateth My flesh and drinketh My blood, abideth in Me, and I in him," John vi.
Furthermore, St. Chrysostom, Homily 36 on 1 Corinthians, says: "Where Christ is in the Eucharist, there too the throng of angels is not lacking; and where such a king and such a prince is, there is a heavenly palace, indeed heaven itself." Wherefore in the Lives of the Fathers we read of St. Ammon that, while he was celebrating, an angel was seen standing by the altar, marking the communicants and writing down their names in a book. St. Chrysostom, in Books III and VI On the Priesthood, recounts that choirs of angels were seen around the altar, who with bowed head exhibited profound reverence to their king Christ, and uttered awe-inspiring cries. When therefore we communicate, or celebrate or hear Mass, let us think that we are sitting beside Christ at the Last Supper, and dining with Him; indeed, let us think that Christ is speaking, celebrating, and transubstantiating the bread and wine into His body and blood through the mouth of the priest, and feeding and fattening us with them: for Christ here is the principal agent and worker of wonders, as the Council of Trent teaches, Session 22. Hence St. Ambrose, Book VIII on Luke, says: "There is a body, of which it is said: My flesh is meat indeed: around this body are the true eagles, which fly around it on spiritual wings." And Book IV On the Sacraments, Chapter ii: "Rightly are the eagles around the altar, where the body is." For this reason St. Francis, in his Epistle to Priests, which is extant in the Library of the Holy Fathers: "Great misery, he says, and pitiable infirmity, when you have Him so present, and concern yourselves with anything else in the world."
And our own Thomas the God-taught, in Book IV of On the Imitation of Christ, Chapter ii, says: "It ought to seem so great a thing to you, so new and so joyful, when you celebrate or hear Mass, as if on that very day Christ first descended into the womb of the Virgin and became man, or, hanging on the Cross, suffered and died for the salvation of men." Whence, in Chapter v, he concludes: "When the priest devoutly celebrates, he honors God, gladdens the angels, builds up the Church, helps the living, gives rest to the dead, and makes himself a sharer of all good things. For what is His good thing, what is His beautiful thing, if not the wheat of the elect and the wine that springeth forth virgins?" Zacharias ix, last verse. See what is said there.
The anagogical cause was that Christ should give us in the Eucharist a pledge — indeed, a foretaste and prelibation — of the heavenly inheritance, happiness, and glory. Hence the Church, from St. Thomas, sings in the Office of the Venerable Sacrament: "O sacred banquet, in which Christ is received, the memory of His Passion is renewed, the mind is filled with grace, and a pledge of future glory is given to us!"
Furthermore, St. Cyril of Alexandria embraces the effects of the Eucharist briefly in Book IV on John, Chapter xvii: "It drives away," he says, "all diseases. For while Christ remains in us, it calms the raging law of our members, strengthens piety, extinguishes the disturbances of the soul, heals the sick, restores the broken; and like the good shepherd who laid down His life for the sheep, He raises us up from every fall." For, as St. Thomas says: "In the Eucharist, spiritual sweetness is tasted at its very source." This was wont to be felt in the sacred synaxis by St. Francis, St. Monica, St. Catherine of Siena, St. Mary of Oignies, and many others, who, drunk with heavenly delight, rejoiced, exulted, and were caught up in ecstasy, saying with the Psalmist: "My heart and my flesh have rejoiced in the living God. For what have I in heaven? and besides Thee what do I desire upon earth? God of my heart, and the God that is my portion forever; Jesus, my love, my God, and my all."
Again, the Eucharist is the food of immortality, because by its power our bodies rise to immortal life, according to that saying of Christ: "He that eateth this bread shall live forever," John vi. The Eucharist therefore imprints upon our bodies a certain power, not physical but moral, which is the seed of immortality, so that by its power we may rise.
From which St. Chrysostom rightly concludes here, in Homily 83, saying: "How much purer, then, ought he to be who enjoys such a sacrifice? More splendid than a sun-ray ought the hand to be that divides this flesh? the mouth that is filled with spiritual fire? the tongue that grows red with that exceedingly awesome blood? Consider with what honor you are marked, what table you enjoy. That which the angels, seeing, shudder at, and dare not freely behold for the splendor flashing forth — this we feed upon, with this we are united, and we are made one body of Christ and one flesh. Who shall declare the powers of the Lord? Who shall make all His praises heard?"
Verse 29: I Will Not Drink From Henceforth of This Fruit of the Vine
29. AND I SAY TO YOU, I WILL NOT DRINK FROM HENCEFORTH (that is, from this time: so the Syriac, as if to say "hereafter") OF THIS FRUIT OF THE VINE (Arabic: of the juice of this vine), UNTIL THAT DAY WHEN I SHALL DRINK IT WITH YOU NEW IN THE KINGDOM OF MY FATHER. — St. Augustine, Book III On the Concordance of the Evangelists, Chapter i, and from him Jansen and several others, judge that Christ said this after the Supper of the Eucharist, as Matthew here suggests.
You will object: The fruit of the vine is wine generated from the vine and pressed from its grapes; therefore in the chalice of the Eucharist there is not the blood of Christ, but only wine generated from the vine. I answer first that the pronoun "this," when He says, "of this fruit of the vine," does not precisely signify what was in the consecrated chalice, but in general the wine which was on the table, from which the chalice had been filled, both at the supper of the lamb and in the consecration of the Eucharist. Second, the blood of Christ can be called wine, just as the body of Christ is called bread by Paul, namely by reason of the substance of the bread and wine which was there before consecration, and by reason of the species of bread and wine which remain after consecration; indeed, the very species or accidents of the wine, because they were born and arose from the vine, are rightly called "fruit of the vine." Third, just as in Scripture and in common speech every food is often called
bread, because this is the common food of all, so also any drink is called wine, especially among the Italians, Syrians, and similar peoples, who do not use beer or ale, but the common drink of all is wine.
But it is far more probable that Christ said these words before the institution of the Eucharist, with reference to the Supper and the chalice of the paschal lamb: for at the supper of the lamb a chalice of wine was passed around, which the head of the family first poured as a libation, and then sent around to all who were eating of the lamb, as the Hebrews report. That this is so is proved because Luke explicitly asserts it, who distinctly narrates both Suppers of Christ — both that of the lamb and that of the Eucharist — which Matthew here, intent on brevity, rolls together and reduces into one; and Luke affirms that these things were spoken by Christ before the Eucharist, at the supper of the lamb, with reference to its chalice. To this is added that Christ had said the same plainly of the supper of the lamb before, as is clear from Luke xxii, 15: "With desire," He says, "I have desired to eat this Passover with you before I suffer. For I say to you, that from this time I will not eat of it until it be fulfilled in the kingdom of God." And immediately afterward, concerning the chalice of the lamb, He adds: "And having taken the chalice, He gave thanks, and said: Take, and divide it among you. For I say to you, that I will not drink of the fruit of the vine, till the kingdom of God come."
Finally, he immediately subjoins the institution of the Eucharist and the chalice consecrated by Christ, saying: "And taking bread, He gave thanks, etc. In like manner the chalice also, after He had supped, saying: This is the chalice, the new testament in My blood, which shall be shed for you." Where afterward he makes no mention either of the fruit of the vine or of new wine to be drunk in the kingdom of God.
Luke therefore, distinctly narrating these things, equally distinctly indicates at which supper Christ said this, namely at the supper of the lamb; but Matthew rolls these two suppers into one, saying: "And whilst they were at supper," etc.; wherefore the order of Luke is here to be followed rather than that of Matthew. Christ therefore by these words wished to signify only that He should not henceforth dine with the Apostles in the customary way, nor take a common meal in this life, nor eat to refresh and repair His strength; but that this was His last supper, after which He was to be taken and slain. Wherefore here He bids the Apostles a last farewell, as one going to death. So these words do not pertain to the chalice of the Eucharist, in which there was no longer the fruit of the vine, that is, wine, but the blood of Christ, into which the wine had been changed by Christ's consecration. So judge St. Jerome here, Bede and Theophylact on Luke chapter xxii, Francisco Lucas, Maldonatus, and others.
WHEN I SHALL DRINK IT NEW WITH YOU IN THE KINGDOM OF MY FATHER. — "New," that is, of a new and different kind. For in heaven the Blessed drink not earthly but heavenly wine, namely the wine and nectar of everlasting joy and glory, according to that saying: "They shall be inebriated with the plenty of Thy house; and Thou shalt make them drink of the torrent of Thy pleasure," Psalm xxxv, 9. So Origen here and Gregory Nazianzen, in his Oration On Pascha. For Scripture is accustomed to express the spiritual joys of the Blessed by bodily things, namely by food and drink, by catachresis, because carnal men do not grasp spiritual pleasures, but only bodily ones, as is clear from Matthew viii, 11; Luke xiv, 15; Apocalypse xix, 9, and elsewhere.
You will say: Christ after His Resurrection, in order to prove it to the Apostles, ate with them, and, as it seems, also drank wine. How then does He here say that He will no longer drink it with them? I answer: Christ indeed then ate and drank with the Apostles, but only in passing, and only to prove that He had risen, not to satisfy nature and hunger as He had done before His death. Hence, speaking after the manner of men, He does not reckon that eating after the Resurrection as eating. Similar is Luke xxiv, 44. For He wishes to signify only that His death is at hand, and that henceforth He will not, in the common manner of men, hunger or converse with them as He has hitherto done. So here He bids them farewell, as friends do who are dying, or departing for distant regions from which they will not return, saying to their friends: Farewell, O friend; I will no longer drink or eat with you; I therefore drink to you this final cup; so that by this phrase they may drive into their friend the goad of love. This is what Luke, xxii, 29, says Christ said immediately afterward to the Apostles: "And I appoint to you, as My Father hath appointed to Me, a kingdom; that you may eat and drink at My table in My kingdom." "To you," with the one exception of Judas, who shall drink, not the chalice of wine in heaven, but the chalice of sulphur in Tartarus.
Verse 30: And a Hymn Having Been Said, They Went Out Unto Mount Olivet
30. And A HYMN HAVING BEEN SAID (that is, sung; for a hymn is sung, says St. Augustine at the beginning of Psalm lxxii), THEY WENT OUT TO THE MOUNT OF OLIVES. — In Greek ὑμνήσαντες, that is, when they had said or sung a hymn, in thanksgiving and praise of God; the Arabic: And they gave praise, and went out to the Mount of Olives. Some think, from the Hebrew Ritual books, that it was customary among the Jews at the Passover to sing this hymn in thanksgiving after the supper of the lamb; namely, as Paul of Burgos notes — and from him Francisco Lucas, Baronius, and others — that this hymn was the seven Psalms compounded from the alleluia, which begin with Psalm cxiii: In exitu Israel de Ægypto, etc., and end with Psalm cxviii: Beati immaculati in via. Whence St. Chrysostom concludes that no one ought to leave the Mass before the act of thanksgiving, which is made in the Collects after Communion. The same conclusion may be drawn concerning a common dinner and supper, namely that one should not leave it without first having given thanks to God. Hence the Fourth Council of Toledo, Chapter xii, asserts that we have, from this hymn of Christ, an example of singing hymns. Hence also the practice of singing in the Mass is most ancient, as is clear from the early Liturgies.
This rite, then, of singing a hymn at the supper of the lamb was a practice of the ancient Hebrews, which the Christians afterward followed, so that after the Eucharist and the agape — that is, the banquet of charity common to all the faithful — they might sing psalms to God in thanksgiving. This is gathered from Paul, Ephesians v, 19, and Tertullian explicitly teaches it in his Apology, Chapter xxxix, as does St. Cyprian in his Epistle to Donatus. So also the Gentiles after their feasts used to pour libations to Bacchus or to some other god, and in their honor sing with a common voice a paean or some hymn, and then each one, having taken a branch of myrtle or laurel, was compelled to sing his own song, and even to play the lyre, which was passed around among the guests, as Plutarch testifies, in Book I of his Symposiacs, Problem 1, and Clement of Alexandria in Book II of the Pædagogus, Chapter iv. Finally, St. Augustine, Epistle 253, reports that a hymn of Christ was wont to be circulated in his time, but he himself convicts it of imposture, and indicates that it was forged by the Priscillianists.
Furthermore, here, according to the right order of the history and of the events, must be appended the long discourse of Christ, ardent and fiery, which John relates from chapter xiii to chapter xviii. For Christ delivered this in the supper-room immediately after the supper.
THEY WENT OUT TO THE MOUNT OF OLIVES. — Christ, especially in these last days of His life, was accustomed daily to go up to Jerusalem and to teach in the temple, but toward evening to return to Bethany, and there to sup, and then after supper to go back to the Mount of Olives, and there to spend the night in prayer, as Luke indicates in chapter xxi, 37. Now, however, He did not go up to Bethany, since He had already supped in Jerusalem, but went from there to the Mount of Olives, as if to the arena of the wrestling-match, in order to offer Himself there to be seized by Judas and the Jews. So Victor of Antioch on Mark chapter xiv: "Why," he says, "did He go out to the mountain? In order that, despising hiding-places, He might expose Himself in a convenient spot and make Himself manifest to those who were about to seize Him. For He hastened to occupy that place where He had previously been wont to pray, and which the betrayer knew very well," as John says in chapter xviii, 2.
Verse 31: All You Shall Be Scandalized in Me This Night
31. THEN JESUS SAITH TO THEM: ALL YOU SHALL BE SCANDALIZED IN ME THIS NIGHT. FOR IT IS WRITTEN: I WILL STRIKE THE SHEPHERD, AND THE SHEEP OF THE FLOCK SHALL BE DISPERSED. — "Scandal," that is, an offense and a falling into sin: First, of faint-heartedness and timidity, by which, being timid, you shall in My Passion forsake and flee from Me, who am Christ your Master and Lord. "You shall be scandalized;" the Syriac: "You shall be offended in Me." So St. Leo, Sermon 9 On the Passion: "At that time the dread of the disciples was excusable, and the apostolic grief did not fall under the guilt of distrust." And lower down, treating of Peter's denial: "The Lord saw in you, not feigned faith, not perverse love, but constancy that had been disturbed." For so St. Marcellinus and many others in the persecution, when asked by tyrants whether they were Christians, denying out of fear of torments that they were, sinned directly, not against faith, but against the profession of faith, because they did not dare to profess the faith which they held in their minds, lest they should be killed.
Second, the Apostles seem to have suffered a scandal in faith, in such a way that, when they saw Christ seized by Judas and the Jews, bound, and dragged away, and not defending Himself but being conquered and oppressed by them, they thought that He suffered against His will or under compulsion, and therefore that He could not deliver Himself or His own, and consequently that He was neither God nor the Son of God; and therefore that He would perish in death, would not rise again, and that no further help was to be hoped for from Him. Wherefore, forgetful or oblivious of all Christ's promises and predictions, they believed none of them. Hence the Church seems to hold that the faith of Christ then remained in the Blessed Virgin alone, when in the office of Parasceve she successively extinguishes all the candles, leaving only one burning; but others, with greater truth, restrict this to the faith in the Resurrection — namely, that the Blessed Virgin alone believed that Christ would rise from death to the light of life. The same is evident from the Apostles, who very reluctantly believed Christ when He appeared to them after the Resurrection and said that He had risen. Hence Christ rebuked their unbelief, in Mark xvi, 14. So St. Hilary: "You shall suffer scandal," he says, "that is, you shall be disturbed by fear and unbelief." And Euthymius: "The faith which you have in Me shall be shaken out of you, or you shall flee," because you will believe that I can no longer help or defend you: indeed Christ Himself, in John xvi, 31-32, when the Apostles say, "Now we believe that Thou camest forth from God," answers: "Do you now believe? Behold, the hour cometh, and is now come, that you shall be scattered every man to his own, and shall leave Me alone;" as if to say: Now you believe in Me, but a little while hence, when you shall have seen Me seized and suffering, you will not believe. Whence on this passage St. Augustine, Tract 103, clearly explains: "For not only," he says, "when He was seized did they forsake His flesh in their flesh, but also in their mind they abandoned faith. To this pertains what He said: 'Do you now believe?' etc., as if He were saying: At that time you shall be so disturbed that you shall even let go of what you now believe. For they came to such a despair, and so to speak, to such a death of their former faith, as appeared in that Cleopas, who after His Resurrection, not knowing whom he was speaking to, and recounting what had befallen Him, said: 'We were hoping that it was He who should have redeemed Israel.' Behold how they had abandoned Him by also forsaking the very faith with which they had previously believed in Him." Thus far Augustine. For this reason, following St. Augustine, Jansen, Francisco Lucas, Emmanuel Sa, and others judge that the Apostles, when Christ was taken captive, fell away from the faith.
Added to this is St. Ambrose, Sermon 48, saying that Peter lost the faith, and Torquemada, Book I On the Church, Chapter xxx, and Book III, Chapter lxi. But many great theologians now teach that Peter did not lose the faith, but only sinned against the profession of faith. The reason is that the Evangelists say only this much: why then should we invent a greater crime
...and let us press and bear down on Peter, the chief of the Apostles? S. Augustine adds, in tract 113, where he says that Peter, only out of fear, denied that he was a Christian, that is, a disciple of Christ, just as today in Japan many of the faithful deny the same thing through fear of death, who nevertheless retain the faith in their heart. And more clearly S. Cyril, book XI on John, chapter XLI, where he asserts that Peter denied Him not out of fear but out of love for Christ, namely because he wished to see Christ and to remain with Him, which would not have been allowed him had he confessed himself His disciple. And S. Ambrose, on chapter XXII of Luke, who says that Peter did not deny God but the man, as if to say: « I know not the man, because I know God; » therefore when the same Ambrose, sermon 47, says that Peter lost his faith, by « faith » he understands the profession of faith. Almost the same thing is said by S. Hilary, canon 32 on Matthew, and by S. Leo, sermon 9 On the Passion, speaking of Peter: « The Lord saw in thee, » he says, « not a feigned faith, nor an averted love, but a constancy that had been shaken. Weeping abounded where affection did not fail, and the fountain of charity washed away the words of fear. »
Therefore Peter sinned mortally against the profession of faith by denying that he was the disciple of Christ, and so he lost charity, but not faith. So Maldonatus here teaches expressly, and Toletus on John XVIII, note 11, where he says this opinion is received by all. Likewise Bellarmine, book III On the Church, chapter XVII, who proves it from that passage of Luke XXII: « I have prayed for thee, Peter, that thy faith fail not. » So too Suarez, tract On Faith, disp. IX, sect. 3, where he asserts that Peter did not lose his faith, nor did James, nor John: for the latter, a little afterwards, stood firm by the crucified Christ, and was commended by Him to the Virgin Mother as a son; and he probably holds the same of the other Apostles, for they did not deny Christ but, fearing only to be apprehended, fled apart.
God permitted this for various reasons. The first was, that He might supply more matter of suffering to Christ, and exercise Him in every kind of pain and allow Him to be afflicted by all. For a great pain and affliction to Christ was the falling away and flight of the Apostles, both because He grieved over their fall and sin, and because He saw in them every fruit of His preaching cut off and perishing.
The second reason was, that He might show the Apostles their own weakness, and thus humble them and instruct them to be compassionate to the weak and the fallen. For they themselves saw all their own boldness and constancy — by which they had pledged themselves to cleave to Christ unto death — at the sight of His arrest melting away at once like wax, and themselves thinking of nothing but flight. Here was verified that saying: « Before the battle, lions; in the battle, stags. »
The third reason was, that He might declare how great is the force of persecution and of fear. For fear stripped the Apostles of their faith, memory, and mind, and from lions made them hares and stags and the swiftest of fawns. Wherefore this fear can be overcome neither by reason nor by natural strength, but only by the grace of God, and so this grace must be continually implored. For fear so dismayed them that they thought it was utterly all over with Christ, and supposed that nothing more was to be expected from Him; and so they could not overcome it except by the grace of God. « Truly we learn from this a great doctrine, » says Chrysostom, « namely, that the will of man is by no means sufficient unless it be strengthened by a higher aid. » And Victor of Antioch, on Mark: « Here is offered to us a singular lesson, namely that for repelling graver temptations no readiness of man is enough if heavenly assistance is wanting, as it is written, » Zechariah XIII, 7.
« I will strike. » — The Septuagint has πάταξον, that is, « strike, » and so the Hebrew of Zechariah, chapter XIII. Whence Maldonatus thinks that Matthew, who is wont to follow the Septuagint, wrote πάταξον, that is, « strike. » But all the manuscripts consistently have πατάξω, that is, « I will strike. » So also the Syriac and the Arabic. But the sense comes to the same. For the Prophets are accustomed to use the imperative for the future, especially by the poetic apostrophe which is to them an elegance. « Strike, » therefore — namely, O sword, as preceded, that is, O blade — that is: I, God, will strike, that is, I will permit Christ to be struck with swords, that is, with arms, scourges, clubs, nails, and torments of the Jews, and I will expose Him to them for the salvation of men. Similar is Isaiah VI, 10: « Blind the heart of this people, and make their ears heavy, and shut their eyes, » which Paul, Acts XXVIII, 26, renders by the future: « With your ears you shall hear, and shall not understand; and seeing you shall see, and shall not perceive. »
« THE SHEPHERD. » — That is, Christ, who is the shepherd of shepherds and the bishop of our souls, 1 Peter II, 25.
« AND THE SHEEP SHALL BE SCATTERED, » — that is, the Apostles, when they saw the swords of the Jews, fleeing each one to wherever lot and opportunity for flight was given him. Yet a little after, God again gathered them together and united them, so that at Easter the risen Christ might find them gathered, and at the same time restore to all of them faith and courage. For since Christ and the Apostles had no homes or friends in Jerusalem, the fleeing Apostles knew no other end of their flight than to take refuge in the upper room where shortly before the Passover they had celebrated with Christ, because the master of that house was the friend and host of Christ and the Apostles: and so they betook themselves there, and there after the resurrection Christ at Easter appeared to them and restored their faith. This was a special grace of Christ, which He at once showed most of all in Peter when, after his threefold denial, looking upon him and pricking him to repentance, He made him weep bitterly; and in John, whom He moved so that, returning from his flight, he stood with His mother by the cross — whence He commended and gave him as a son to His mother. Wherefore that at that moment both returned to the grace of Christ and were sanctified is beyond doubt.
Christ predicts these things to the Apostles in order to show them that He is God, and therefore that He suffers not by compulsion but voluntarily for the redemption of men, and that, as S. Jerome says, « when they have suffered these things, they may not despair of salvation, but, doing penance, may be delivered. »
Verse 32: After I Am Risen Again, I Will Go Before You Into Galilee
Verse 32. « BUT AFTER I AM RISEN AGAIN, I WILL GO BEFORE YOU » (that is, « I will go ahead, » says Euthymius, « to receive you there ») « INTO GALILEE. » — « He said ‘Galilee,’ » says S. Chrysostom, « so that, freed from the fear of the Jews, they might more easily attend to His words and believe them. » Therefore, lest the Apostles despair after their fall, Christ here promises that He will soon take care of them, and indeed will go before them into Galilee.
Verse 33: Although All Shall Be Scandalized in Thee, I Will Never Be Scandalized
Verse 33. « BUT PETER ANSWERING, SAID TO HIM: ALTHOUGH ALL SHALL BE SCANDALIZED IN THEE, I WILL NEVER BE SCANDALIZED. » — His vehement love of Christ impelled Peter to say these things. « For it is faith, » says S. Jerome, « and ardent affection toward the Lord which compels him so to speak. » « He thinks, » as S. Augustine says in the book On Grace and Free Will, chapter XVII, « that he can do what he feels he wills to do. » Yet he sins here in three ways: first, in that he too boldly contradicts and protests against Christ's assertion, in order to show that His prediction would prove vain in his case; second, in that he prefers himself too arrogantly to the others; third, in that he presumes too much and trusts in his own strength. For, conscious of human weakness, he ought to have prayed and said: I believe it can come to pass, indeed that it will come to pass through my frailty; but Thou, O Lord, strengthen it with Thy grace, and uphold and sustain me, lest I fall into sin. We morally experience the same in ourselves. For we often think ourselves strong in faith, in chastity, in patience; but when temptation assails us, we waver, we tremble, and forthwith we fall. The remedy of temptation, therefore, is the recognition of one's own weakness and the imploring of divine power.
Verse 34: Before the Cock Crow, Thou Shalt Deny Me Thrice
Verse 34. « JESUS SAID TO HIM: AMEN I SAY TO THEE, THAT IN THIS NIGHT, BEFORE THE COCK CROW, THOU SHALT DENY ME THRICE. » — More forcefully in the Greek, ἀπαρνήσῃ, that is, « thou shalt utterly deny, » nay rather « thou shalt forswear Me, » as if to say: Thou wilt do worse, Peter, than the rest, and thy presumption deserves this beyond the rest. For the rest will only flee, but thou wilt forswear Me. « Crow, » namely toward dawn: for the cock crows twice — first after midnight, secondly more loudly toward dawn when it senses the sun and the light coming on. Hence this time is properly called « the cock-crow. » And before this second crowing of the cock, Peter denied Christ three times. Hence Mark says, chapter XIV, 30: « Before the cock crow twice, thou shalt deny Me thrice, » as if to say: O Peter, who now art so eager to confess Me, a little later this very night thou shalt be more frequent and from fear more fervent in denying Me than the cock in crowing; but the cock by its crowing wakes the sleepers to praise God, while thou by thy denial wilt rouse others to revile Me.
« Peter, » says S. Jerome, « was promising out of the ardor of his faith, and the Saviour as God was foretelling things to come. » Christ gives Peter the sign of the cock-crow, so that when he heard the cock crowing, he might remember Christ's prediction given to him as a sign of his denial, and so, repenting both his denial and his presumption, he might acknowledge his fault and ask for pardon, as in fact he did. Whence Bede, on chapter XXII of Luke, verse 34: « As God, » he says, « He foretells the manner, the time, the hour, and the number of the denial. »
Verse 35: Yea, Though I Should Die With Thee, I Will Not Deny Thee
Verse 35. « PETER SAID TO HIM: YEA, THOUGH I SHOULD DIE WITH THEE, I WILL NOT DENY THEE. AND IN LIKE MANNER SAID ALL THE DISCIPLES. » — That they might testify their faith, affection, and love toward Christ; but they sinned by presumption in two ways, as I said on verse 33.
You will say: The Apostles believed Christ to be a Prophet, indeed the Son of God; how then did they not believe Him when He foretold their fall, but rather contradicted Him? I answer: Because they paid attention not to Christ's prediction, but to the present resolution of their own mind contrary to that prediction, which they experienced in themselves as so strong and so resolved that they thought it impossible that they should fall away from their Christ. Wherefore they judged Christ's prediction to be not so much a prediction as a temptation and trial of their resolve and love toward Christ, and therefore they thought that in this trial they ought to demonstrate to themselves their affection toward Christ all the more resolutely and courageously. Hence S. Hilary: « So far, » he says, « was Peter carried away both by affection and love for Christ, that he had no regard either for the weakness of his own flesh, or for the trustworthiness of the Lord's words. »
But even if they had believed Christ's prediction, they would still freely have denied Christ, because neither the prediction nor their belief in it took away their freedom; on the contrary, they presupposed both that freedom and the use of it. For Christ foretold that they would fall away from Him because they really were going to fall away; they did not fall away because Christ predicted they would. For objectively their future defection was prior to His foreknowledge and prediction of it (since Christ foresaw only what was going to come about through them as free agents): therefore He imposed on them no necessity of denying Him, since their denial was posterior to His foreknowledge.
You will press the point: If Peter, giving credence to Christ's prediction, had persuaded himself that he would certainly deny Christ that night, he could not have failed to deny Him, because this persuasion and belief would always have determined his mind and as it were bound it to deny Christ — for no one can effectively try to do the contrary of what he certainly knows will happen and that he himself will do; he would try in vain. Hence he apprehends it and recoils from it as something impossible for him, since he knows for certain that this and not anything else will come to pass, whatever he tries or does. I answer: That persuasion would indeed have inclined and in some manner determined Peter to deny Christ, but only in general or in a confused way — namely, that at some time of the night he would deny Christ; it did not, however, force him to deny Him at this hour, this instant, this place, this occasion, in front of these or those people. Wherefore in particular all his acts by which...
...he would have denied Christ would have been free. So too the knowledge by which we know that we cannot avoid all venial sins, but that it is necessary that we at some time fall into some venial sin through human frailty, makes and as it were forces us to fall into some such sin at some time, but only in general and confusedly; for in particular, as often as here and now we sin venially, we sin freely. So also the theologians and Suarez, in his tract On Hope, teach that one to whom his damnation has been revealed by God cannot effectively hope for eternal salvation, since he apprehends it as already impossible for him. For no one can attempt to do what he thinks is impossible for him: but for the rest, that same person can and ought to keep all God's commandments, and as often as he transgresses them, will transgress freely and thus sin freely, even though he knows in general that he is going to fall into some mortal sin and die in it.
Moreover, this fall of Peter and of the Apostles made them more humble and more cautious, says S. Chrysostom. Whence, in John XXI, 15, 21 and 22, when Christ asked a third time, « Simon, son of John, dost thou love Me? » Peter modestly answers, « Lord, Thou knowest all things; Thou knowest that I love Thee. »
Verse 36: Then Jesus Came With Them to a Country-House Which Is Called Gethsemane
Verse 36. « THEN JESUS CAME WITH THEM TO A COUNTRY-HOUSE WHICH IS CALLED GETHSEMANI, AND HE SAID TO HIS DISCIPLES: SIT YOU HERE TILL I GO YONDER AND PRAY. » — « To a country-house, » Greek εἰς χωρίον, that is, « to an estate »; S. Hilary, « to a field, » to which however a country-house was customarily attached. For Christ did not enter a house, but His field or estate or hamlet. « Gethsemani, » as S. Jerome says in On the Places of the Hebrews, and from him Adrichomius, was a country-house at the foot of the Mount of Olives, fruitful in olive trees. Hence « Gethsemani » means « valley of oil » or « of fatness »: for גיא ghe means « valley, » and שמן shemen means « oil » or « fatness. » Or more precisely « Gethsemani » means « oil-press, » for גת geth means « press. » For in this country-house there seems to have been an oil-press to which the olives that grew abundantly on the Mount of Olives were brought, that they might be pressed in it for extracting the oil. This country-house was about six hundred paces from the upper room in which Christ had eaten the Last Supper, that is, half an Italian mile, and about another hundred paces beyond.
Now Christ withdrew thither for the following reasons: First, for the sake of prayer, in order to teach us, when we pray, to seek a place that is secret and removed from the crowds, where the mind is distracted by nothing, but gathers itself wholly together and lifts itself up to God: « teaching us, » says S. Chrysostom, « to seek out diligently quiet and tranquillity in our prayers. »
Secondly, to show that He was not fleeing death but seeking it, and therefore He betakes Himself to a place known to the traitor Judas, as it were offering Himself to Judas and to the Jews for prey and slaughter, like a lamb and a victim of God, or as a wrestler seeks out the wrestling-ring, a runner the stadium, a duelist the duel.
Thirdly, to demonstrate that He was suffering and dying for the salvation of men out of pure mercy and charity. For oil is the symbol of mercy, and « Gethsemani » means « valley of oil »: wherefore just as oil was pressed out from olives there, so in that same place by His agony the blood of Christ was pressed out, by which as by oil we are refreshed, anointed, and fed. Whence that saying: « Thy name is as oil poured out, » Canticles I. See what is said there.
« SIT YOU HERE TILL I GO YONDER AND PRAY. » — « Yonder, » namely into the garden, as John says in chapter XVIII, 1, which was about a stone's throw from the country-house of Gethsemani, as is plain from Luke XXII, 41, and which adjoined a certain hollow rock. See the tables of Adrichomius, in which you will see that next to this garden was the cottage of the holy penitent Pelagia, and on another side the tomb of the Blessed Virgin, and above, the place on the Mount of Olives from which Christ ascended into heaven. For it was fitting and congruous that, in the place where Christ supremely sorrowed and humbled Himself by suffering, in the same place He should also supremely rejoice and be exalted by ascending into heaven. God often does the same in the rest of His elect.
Therefore Christ, strictly speaking, did not pray, nor was He sorrowful, in the country-house of Gethsemani itself, but in a garden adjoining the country-house. The reason is that Christ in a garden began His Passion, by which He expiated the sin of Adam, namely the eating of the forbidden fruit committed in the garden of paradise. For by that act Adam destroyed himself and all his offspring, and subjected them to sin, death, and hell — all of which Christ here expiates in a garden by the agony which He underwent in it, according to that saying of Canticles VIII, 5: « Under the apple tree I raised thee up: there was thy mother corrupted, there was she violated that bore thee, » namely Eve, and through Eve Adam, and through Adam all his posterity. Therefore in a garden Christ restored us to the paradise from which we had been driven through Adam, and there He established the garden of the Church, blooming with the myrrh of mortification, the saffron of charity, the spikenard of humility, the lilies of virgins, the roses of martyrs, the laurels of doctors, and so on, according to that: « A garden enclosed art thou, my sister, my spouse, a garden enclosed, a fountain sealed up. Thy plants are a paradise, » etc., Canticles IV, 12. See what is said there.
Verse 37: Taking With Him Peter and the Two Sons of Zebedee, He Began to Grow Sorrowful
Verse 37. « AND TAKING WITH HIM PETER AND THE TWO SONS OF ZEBEDEE (James and John), HE BEGAN TO GROW SORROWFUL AND TO BE SAD. » — Leaving the eight Apostles in Gethsemani, He took the other three with Him into the garden, namely Peter, James, and John, so that these alone might be witnesses of His sorrow and agony, lest the rest be disturbed and scandalized by the same; both because Christ trusted these three most, as His most intimate friends; and because these three had a little before seen His glory in the Transfiguration on Mount Tabor: wherefore it was fitting that they likewise should see His agony and grief on the Mount of Olives, and learn that the way to glory is by passion and agony, and that one must go through the mountain of Calvary and the cross to reach the mountain and brightness of Tabor. So Origen: « The others, » he says, « I bade sit, as being weaker; but you, as being stronger, I will to labour with Me in vigils and prayers. »
« HE BEGAN » (of His own accord and spontaneously, voluntarily and freely,
« not by compulsion, not unwillingly) TO GROW SORROWFUL » (in Greek λυπεῖσθαι, that is, to be sorrowful, afflicted, distressed) « AND TO BE SAD. » — The Syriac, « to be vehemently in anguish »; in Greek it is ἀδημονεῖν, that is, to be so distressed as to be almost lifeless, to faint from grief, to bear something beyond measure ill, so that one seems to be beside himself. Hence Christ adds: « My soul is sorrowful even unto death. » Hence Luke calls the anguish of Christ « agony, » such namely as the dying undergo when they are giving up the soul and are in the death-struggle; and the Interpreter in Mark renders ἀδημονεῖν as tædere, « to be weary »; for anguish makes a man weary of life and prefer to die rather than be in such anguish.
Mark adds: « He began to fear »; in Greek ἐκθαμβεῖσθαι, that is, to be amazed or to fear unto stupor. For vehement fear induces stupor, and makes men stupefied and astonished, so that they cannot even move from their place: just as the lion by its roar so dismays and stupefies other animals that they cannot flee but stand motionless; whereupon he himself seizes them, tears them apart, and devours them, as Ælian and Aldrovandus testify in their treatises On the Lion. The reason a priori is that, in fear and dread, the vital and animal spirits flee to the heart, in order to comfort it as it grows fearful and faints from fear; whereby it comes to pass that the head, the hands, and the feet, deprived of these spirits which serve motion and sensation, grow cold, stiff, and numb, and become motionless. Hence
Note here, first, that there was true sorrow in Christ; for although He, from the very beginning of His conception, enjoyed the vision of God, hypostatically united to Himself, and was blessed and in the highest joy, yet He was also supremely sorrowful, but with respect to different objects, at least formally — God, namely, supernaturally extending and enlarging the capacity of His soul by a special concurrence, whereby He concurred with the soul of Christ so that it could at the same time receive and elicit the highest joy on account of the vision of God and the highest sorrow on account of the death imminent over Him. So the theologians commonly teach, refuting Melchior Cano (book XII On Theological Loci, chapter XIV) who said that in Christ the joy which naturally follows from the vision of God was suspended during the time He was a wayfarer, so that He might be able to grieve and be sorrowful. See St. Thomas, III part, Quest. XLVI, art. 8, and Suarez, III part, Quest. XVIII, disp. XXXVIII, sect. 8. Christ therefore was at once both wayfarer and comprehensor — as wayfarer He was sorrowful and suffered; as comprehensor He was blessed and full of joy. Moreover, Christ, not only as comprehensor but also as wayfarer, both supremely rejoiced and grieved over His Passion at the same time. For He grieved over it according to the lower part of His soul, inasmuch as this Passion was harmful to nature; He rejoiced in it according to the higher part, inasmuch as it was willed by God and ordained for the salvation of men.
Note secondly, that this sorrow was not only in the sensitive appetite, but also in the will of Christ — at least according to the lower part of His will, which naturally has regard to and loves the good of its own nature, namely life and health, but shrinks from and hates death and pain, and is sorrowful concerning them. That this is so is clear from Christ's own words when, praying to the Father, He says: « Nevertheless, not as I will, but as Thou wilt. » Therefore by His will He naturally willed to be delivered from death. And in Luke: « Not My will, but Thine be done. »
Note thirdly, that the primary cause of Christ's sorrow was not the foreseen flight and scandal of His disciples, as S. Jerome and S. Hilary would have it, but the vivid apprehension of His imminent Passion and death, as is plain from the fact that He Himself in praying said: « Let this chalice pass from Me. » For Christ foresaw all and each of the torments, scourges, insults, slaps, mockeries, blasphemies, death, and cross to be inflicted on Him by the Jews, and He vividly penetrated and weighed the magnitude and bitterness of every single pain, so that they seemed to Him to be already being suffered. This apprehension brought such sorrow and anguish upon Him that He groaned, trembled, languished, grew pale, His strength failed, and He almost collapsed — nay, He even sweated blood: namely, Christ willed by this sorrow to expiate the joy and delight which Adam had in eating the forbidden fruit, and which individuals have when they sin in their own pleasures, riches, and honours.
Now there were many other causes of sorrow in Christ, on account of which from the beginning of His conception throughout His whole life up to death He was continuously and supremely sorrowful, namely: the first was, all and each of the sins of all and each of the men who were, are, and shall be from Adam to the end of the world. For He took all these upon Himself as if His own, to be paid for and expiated, so that He might make satisfaction for the injury and offence done to God the Father by them. For the soul of Christ in God beheld all sacrileges, murders, adulteries, lusts, thefts, slanders, blasphemies, and other horrible and monstrous crimes, and on account of them He elicited the highest compunction and grief, just as if He had committed them. For He saw how great was the gravity of each crime, how great the majesty of God offended, and consequently how great an injury and offence is done to God by them: wherefore He elicited a grief that, as far as could be, was equal and commensurate to both. This is what He Himself groaning says in Psalm XXI, 1: « God, my God, look upon Me: why hast Thou forsaken Me? Far from My salvation are the words of My sins. »
The second cause of His sorrow was the foresight of all the pains which the Martyrs were to suffer on the rack, in fires, in every kind of torment; the Confessors in persecutions, mortifications, sicknesses, slanders; virgins in safeguarding their chastity; spouses in raising their children, servants, and maidservants, in poverty, in labours, etc.; Prelates and Pastors in governing the faithful; and the faithful generally in the temptations of the world, the flesh, and the devil. And all these, all and each of the sufferings of every individual...
...Christ took mentally upon Himself, sorrowing, groaning, and praying for them, in order that by His own sorrow and groaning He might obtain from God the Father for each one grace and strength to sustain and overcome all things; for He loves His faithful as sons, indeed almost as Himself. Hence He grieves over their miseries and afflictions as if they were His own, as is clear from Matthew XXIII, 35 and 40.
The third cause was the ingratitude of men, especially because He foresaw that to so few would these sufferings of His be of profit; for few would be saved, but very many would be damned through their own negligence and ingratitude. Hence the Poet sings of Him:
« Not this sorrow of mine is sorrow, but love; this one thing I grieve, That for many our toil here will be in vain. »
The fourth cause was the affliction of His mother, especially while she stood by the cross: for the pains of the Son pierced the soul of the mother as if with swords, and from her they were reflected back upon Christ Himself: for He grieved supremely that His mother was so greatly afflicted on His account. Yet Christ kept down and overcame in His mind these and all other sorrows, but this one He showed to His disciples in the garden. Hence
Note fourthly, that this sorrow in Christ was not necessary, nor natural and involuntary in such a way that it forestalled the command of reason and will (as in us, when something painful befalls us), but was entirely free and freely assumed by Christ. This is what the Theologians mean when they say that in Christ there were not « passions » but « pro-passions »: for all the affections and movements of the will, just as those of the sensitive appetite, in Christ arose from the disposition of reason and the free choice of His will. For all the lower powers and faculties were in Christ, as in Adam, perfectly subject to the will: for this is what original justice — that is, the full rectitude of the soul — required, which was in Christ, as it was in Adam so long as he remained in his innocence, as the Theologians teach following S. Augustine in book XIV of On the City of God, chapter IX. Whence Damascene, book III On the Faith, chapter XXIII: « He permitted, » he says, « the flesh to undergo its proper sufferings; but nothing in Christ was constrained; for of His own will He hungered, feared, and grew sorrowful. »
Note fifthly, Luke XXII, 42, adds that Christ sweated blood and was strengthened by an Angel, of which I shall speak in Luke. Hence Isaiah LIII, 3, calls Christ « a man of sorrows, » for the reasons which I have there set forth.
Moreover, the final and moral causes of this sorrow of Christ were various. The first is given by Chrysostom: « That He may show, » he says, « that He took on a true flesh, He undergoes human things. » So also S. Jerome and Origen, and S. Leo, sermon 7 On the Passion: « In our humility He is despised, in our sadness He is sorrowful, and in our pain He is crucified. »
The second is given by S. Gregory, book XXIV of the Morals, chapter XVII: « As death drew near, » he says, « He expressed in Himself the struggle of our mind, since [we greatly fear when death approaches...]
...we greatly fear when death approaches. » The third [cause] is given by S. Ambrose, on chapter XXII of Luke, verse 44: « Nowhere, » he says, « do I more wonder at Christ's piety and majesty than here, where most men shudder; He would have conferred less on me had He not taken on my own affection: He took on my sorrow, that He might lavish on me His own joy. Confidently I name sorrow, because I preach the cross: He had to take on grief in order to conquer it: stupor has no claim to the praise of fortitude. He willed to teach us to overcome the sadness of the death to come, and perhaps He is sorrowful for this reason: that after Adam's fall it is necessary for us to die; and likewise because He knew that His persecutors would suffer the penalties of monstrous sacrilege. » And after a few words interposed: « Therefore, Lord, Thou grievest, not over Thy own wounds, but over mine; not at Thy death, but at our weakness. »
Elegantly and piously S. Athanasius, in his treatise On the Passion and the Cross: « Christ descended, » he says, « in order to prepare for us the ascent; He experienced birth, that through it we might be reconciled to the unbegotten Father; He was made weak for our sake, that we might be raised up in strength, and that we might say in the manner of Paul: ‘I can do all things in Him who strengthens me, in Jesus Christ.’ He assumed a corruptible body, that the corruptible might put on incorruption; He put on the mortal, that what was mortal might put on immortality; lastly, He was made man and died, so that we men, in dying, might be made gods, and might no longer have death reigning over us. For death has no dominion over us, » etc.
The fourth cause was that He might mitigate the horror of death which has been inflicted on us as a punishment from Adam's sin, indeed that He might transform it into joy and the hope of attaining a better life in heaven. Hence Christ merited that the martyrs should not shrink from such great torments and such horrible deaths, nor be terrified, but should of their own accord seek them out, and exult and rejoice in them, as did S. Ignatius, S. Laurence, and S. Vincent. For Christ took our bitter things upon Himself in order to bestow on us His sweet things. He took on Himself our sorrows in order to repay us with His joys: « Christ came, » says Chrysologus in sermon 150, « to take on Himself our weaknesses and to bestow on us His virtues. » Again, by this sorrow and agony of His Christ merited that the faithful, when placed in the agony of death, should not dread it but accept it patiently and indeed joyfully on account of the hope of resurrection, and should say with Hosea and Paul (1 Corinthians XV, 55), as it were insulting death: « Death is swallowed up in victory: where, O death, is thy victory? where, O death, is thy sting? » See what is said in both places.
The fifth cause was that, by His sorrow, fear, and anguish, He might cure our sloth, faintheartedness, fears, anxieties, scruples, melancholies, distrusts, etc., according to that saying of Isaiah LIII, 4: « Surely He hath borne our infirmities and carried our sorrows. » Wherefore in all these things the best remedy is to have recourse to the agonizing Christ, that He Himself, by the example and merit of the sorrow and agony which He suffered in the garden, may heal our own. For it was for this cause that He underwent it. For, as S. Leo says, sermon III On the Passion: « By participating in the affections of our weakness He healed them, and by undergoing the fear of penal experience He drove it out. In us therefore the Lord trembled with our fear, that He might put on the assumption of our weakness and clothe our inconstancy with the firmness of His own strength. »
Again, [He suffered this sorrow] in order to lessen for us or take away the horror of the difficulty which is met with in every virtue (for virtue has to do with arduous things). For this horror holds many back from virtue and sanctity. Wherefore, when any difficulty or temptation arises, let us arm ourselves with the meditation of Christ's agony: for if He overcame it by struggling and sweating blood, we surely must conquer ours by resisting them generously. Hence Paul, Hebrews XII, exhorting the faithful to the struggle: « Let us run by patience, » he says, « to the fight proposed to us, looking on Jesus, the author and finisher of faith, who, having joy set before Him, endured the cross, despising the shame, and now sitteth at the right hand of the throne of God. For think diligently upon Him that endured such opposition from sinners against Himself, that you be not wearied, fainting in your minds. For you have not yet resisted unto blood, striving against sin. »
Christ therefore taught us here to resist our passions by reason and intellect, especially sloth, sorrow, and anxiety, and so to subdue them and bring them under the dominion of reason. Wherefore Calvin and Beza here impiously and ignorantly accuse Christ as soft, timid, inconstant, wavering between alternating wishes, and more fainthearted than the Martyrs; for He underwent these passions not unwillingly, but summoned them voluntarily, in order that by struggling with them He might bravely conquer them and tame them in us. For, as S. Augustine says, « Christ disturbed Himself by His own power, not by weakness. » See St. Thomas and the Scholastics, III part, Quest. XV, art. 4.
Verse 38: My Soul Is Sorrowful Even Unto Death: Stay You Here and Watch With Me
Verse 38. « THEN HE SAITH TO THEM: MY SOUL IS SORROWFUL » (the Syriac: « sickness is in My soul ») « EVEN UNTO DEATH: STAY YOU HERE, AND WATCH WITH ME. » — As if to say: From the vivid apprehension of the torments and death imminent over Me, I am so sorrowful and so anguished that it is as though I were already dying; I bear the agony and pains of death, such as the dying bear; My spirits and strength are failing Me; I seem to Myself to be all but lifeless from grief and fear. The anguish almost wrests life and spirit from Me. Each word has the emphasis of grief. « Sorrowful, » that is, most sorrowful, « is » not the flesh, not the affection, but « My soul, » because the sorrow penetrates to the inmost of My soul and as it were cleaves My soul like a sword, according to that: « The waters » (of bitterness and afflictions) « have come in even unto My soul, » Psalm LXVIII, 1; « even unto death, » so as to drive Me as it were to death, so that I am scarcely a hair's breadth from death, so that if grief grew but a little, it would overwhelm Me and tear away My life: for I see and behold in mind the most atrocious kinds of all sufferings, very soon and continuously to be undergone by Me unto death. Consider with what feeling of grief and love Christ said these things to Peter, James, and John; what was His pathos, what His countenance, what His voice, what His face.
« STAY HERE. » — In Greek μείνατε, that is, « remain, wait and look upon Me here in the agony of death, supremely sorrowful and praying, both that you may be witnesses of My grief; and that you may learn from Me in every tribulation to have recourse to prayer, » as Theophylact notes; « and that, by watching, suffering with Me, and praying together with Me, you may bring Me some alleviation and solace of so great an affliction; but in vain, for sorrow overwhelms you and drives you into sleep. » Hence Christ complains in Psalm LXVIII, 21: « I looked for one that would grieve together with Me, and there was none; and for one that would comfort Me, and I found none. » Christ willed, out of the vehemence of His love, to undergo a pure and unparalleled passion, without any consolation or any comforter. He willed to drink unmixed the chalice of gall and bitterness, without any honey of sweetness — both so that the redemption might be abundant, and as an example of heroic virtue, in order that He might express in this act of His the very summit of fortitude. For Christ in His Passion elicited the most heroic and most perfect acts of all the virtues. Wherefore in it He was a marvel of humility, because « although He was in the form of God, He emptied Himself, etc., and humbled Himself, becoming obedient unto death, even the death of the cross, » Philippians II, 8. He was in it a marvel of patience, of constancy, of fortitude, as I have already shown. He was a marvel of charity, because « greater love than this no man hath, than that a man lay down his life for his friends »; but Christ laid down His for His enemies, as the Apostle emphasizes in Romans V, 8 — and so for the rest.
Verse 39: My Father, If It Be Possible, Let This Chalice Pass From Me
Verse 39. « AND GOING A LITTLE FURTHER, HE FELL UPON HIS FACE, PRAYING AND SAYING: MY FATHER, IF IT BE POSSIBLE, LET THIS CHALICE PASS FROM ME. NEVERTHELESS NOT AS I WILL, BUT AS THOU WILT. »
« GOING A LITTLE FURTHER, » — namely, a few steps, withdrawing from Peter, James, and John in order to pray secretly, yet in such a way that He could be observed, seen, and heard by them. « HE FELL DOWN, » in Greek ἔπεσεν, that is, He fell upon His face, that is, with His body bent down and prostrated upon the ground, fastening His face to the earth, in order by this gesture: first, to show His supreme affliction; secondly, to give an extraordinary example of humility; thirdly, to display the highest reverence to God the Father; fourthly, to represent the immense burden of our sins which He had taken upon Himself: for this very thing weighed Him down by its weight and pressed Him to the earth; fifthly, to present Himself before the Father as it were a guilty person and a penitent in our stead, and to offer Himself wholly to His chastisement, as if to say: Behold, I give Myself up to Thee as guilty for men; O Father, behold, I offer Myself wholly for the punishment due to them. Behold, I lay My back to the scourges, My head to the crown of thorns...
...vein, [my] hands and feet to the nails, [my] whole body to the cross; therefore scourge, crown, pierce, and crucify Me alone, that You may spare men and receive them back into grace.
For Christ, as man, truly and properly was praying to God the Father, indeed to Himself as He is God. That place of the garden, situated at the foot of the Mount of Olives, in which Christ prayed, was afterward made famous by Christians by a church built there, as Saint Jerome attests in On Hebrew Places. Bede adds, in his treatise On the Holy Places, chapter VI, at the end, and from him Baronius (in the year of Christ 34), that the very rock on which Christ bent His knees while praying yielded to them as if soft wax, and received the imprints of Christ's knees pressed into itself, and that the stone is preserved in the church. Baronius further adds: We have also received from those who visited the holy places, that even at the bottom of the Valley of Josaphat, which the Kedron torrent flows past, the imprints of the feet of the same Christ our Lord remain pressed into the very stones, and have been preserved up to this day.
MY FATHER, IF IT BE POSSIBLE, LET THIS CUP PASS FROM ME. — Absolutely this was possible, but it was impossible given God's decree concerning the redemption of man from rigorous justice through Christ's death. And Christ knew this: wherefore absolutely here He does not will, nor pray for, anything contrary to the Father's will any more than to His own; but He only sets forth His natural desire, that is, His ineffective and conditional will, which naturally shrank from death and wished to be freed from it: yet freely and according to reason He plainly submitted Himself to God, who willed the contrary, namely that He should die.
LET THIS CUP PASS FROM ME. — First, Calvin explains it thus: "This," he says, "was not a deliberate prayer of Christ, but the force and impulse of grief wrung from Him a sudden cry, to which a correction was immediately added. The same vehemence took from Him the present memory of the heavenly decree, so that He did not in that very moment reckon Himself sent under this law as Redeemer of the human race: just as grave anxiety often spreads a cloud over the eyes, so that not all things come to mind at once." But this impious man here blasphemes, when he ascribes to Christ violence, forgetfulness, ignorance, blindness, inconstancy, opposition to the divine will, and therefore actual sin. For as I said above, Christ undertook sadness and grief, and from them this prayer by which He disclosed it, not by compulsion but by free will; yet in such a way that He governed it through prayer and spirit and subjected it to God's will. Therefore the prior act was the substrate of and subordinate to the latter, and therefore it was directed and ordered according to right reason: for nothing in Christ could be disordered or uncomposed. For reason and the higher part rightly and justly willed that the lower part should display its sadness and horror of death, for the causes recounted above.
Second, Saint Jerome takes "the cup" to mean the sin of the Jews, namely that they themselves were going to kill their Christ, as if to say: I desire, O Father, to suffer and die, but I wish and pray that I may not suffer and be killed by the Jews, lest they, who are My nation and the children of Abraham, commit such a monstrous crime and be most gravely condemned and tormented in Gehenna for it. "Whence," says Saint Jerome, "He pointedly did not say: Let the cup pass from Me, but: This cup, that is, [the cup] of the people of the Jews, who cannot have the excuse of ignorance, since they have the Law and the Prophets, who prophesy of Me daily." But this sense is too narrow.
Third, therefore fully and adequately: "Let it pass," that is, let it go by, as the Syriac renders it, and let this cup of the so dreadful passion and death now imminent for Me be turned away from Me, so that I may not taste it, even though You have decreed that I should drain it down to the bottom and the dregs. Why the Passion is called "a cup," I have said in chapter XX, [verse] 22. Furthermore Origen says: It was God's decree that Christ should drink this passion, and so it should pass from Him, and likewise should pass and depart from the whole human race.
Fourth, Saint Catherine of Siena, on the testimony of Ambrosius Catharinus in her Italian Life, book II, chapters 28 and 29, used to bring forward two other expositions, which she said had been revealed to her by Christ. The first is that Christ was thirsting most eagerly for the cup of His Passion, in order to display His love toward the Father and to redeem us, and therefore He was wishing to hasten and complete this work; He therefore says: Make it happen at once, O Father, that I may suffer and die; for My ardor for suffering does not endure delays, not even of an hour, nor of a single moment: so let this cup pass through Me, and then let it pass away from Me, that with death abolished I may return to You at once. For this Christ was wishing according to the spirit, though according to the flesh He shrank from death and wished it to pass, that is, to be turned away from Him. And thus these two senses are consistent: for Christ could pray one thing according to the flesh, and another according to the spirit. If He could, why did He not? For it is certain that He thirsted for this Passion, when He said: "I have a baptism to be baptized with, and how am I straitened until it be accomplished?" and a little before the Passion: "With desire I have desired to eat this Passover with you." He wished therefore to give an example to Saint Ignatius and to other noble Martyrs of desiring crosses.
The latter [exposition]: Christ saw that many would be ungrateful for His Passion, would remain in their sins, and would be damned; this was His supreme grief, and this He here calls the cup, as if to say: Let this cup pass from Me, that is, take from Me this grief and the number of those to be damned; bring it about that all be saved. And if Christ had effectively prayed this, He would have obtained it, because the Father refuses the Son nothing; but Christ preferred to conform Himself to the Father's will and justice, and therefore He said: "Not My will, but Thine be done." Thus far Saint Catherine — not so much taken to the letter, as expressing the pious and ardent feelings and affections of Christ.
Symbolically, Saint Hilary says: "For the disciples who were going to suffer,...
Symbolically, Saint Hilary says: "For the disciples who were going to suffer, Christ took upon Himself every infirmity of our body, and fastened to His cross with Himself all things by which we are made infirm, and therefore the cup cannot pass from Him unless He drink it, because we cannot suffer except from His Passion" — as if Christ were saying: Let this cup of My Passion and My patience pass over, O Father, into My faithful, so that, when they undergo My sufferings, by Your gift they may also experience My patience and My strength to endure.
Piously and wisely Saint Bernard, in Sermon 20 on the Canticle: "Above all, O good Jesus, the cup which You drank, the work of our redemption, makes You lovable to me. This more than anything easily claims our whole love for itself: this, I say, is what most caressingly attracts our devotion, most justly demands it, most tightly binds it, and most vehemently moves it. The Savior labored much in it, nor in the whole fabric of the world did the Maker take upon Himself so much fatigue. There, in the end, He spoke and they were made; He commanded, and they were created. But here both in His words He endured contradictors, and in His deeds hostile observers, and in His torments mockers, and in His death revilers. Behold how He loved." And after some intervening words: "He loved, however, strongly, sweetly, wisely. I would call it sweet that He took on flesh; cautious that He shunned sin; strong that He endured death." Whence he concludes: Learn, O Christian, from Christ how to love Christ. Learn to love sweetly, to love prudently, to love strongly. Sweetly, lest enticed; prudently, lest deceived; strongly, lest, oppressed, we be turned away from the love of the Lord. Nor be led away by the world's glory or pleasures; let Christ, [our] wisdom, become sweeter to you than these. Lest you be seduced by the spirit of falsehood and error, let Christ, [our] truth, shine upon you. Lest you be wearied by adversities, let Christ, the power of God, strengthen you. Let charity inflame your zeal, let knowledge inform it, let constancy steady it. Let it be fervent, let it be circumspect, let it be unconquered."
NEVERTHELESS, NOT AS I WILL, BUT AS THOU. — The Arabic [version reads]: "Nevertheless, not according to My will, but according to Thy will"; supply: "be done." Luke: "Not My will, but Thine be done." From this it is clear, against the Monothelites, that there were not one but two wills in Christ, namely one human and the other divine: for here He subjects the human to the divine; therefore there was not in Christ only the divine [will], which would supply the place of the human, as the Monothelites would have it; for this He had only as God: but also the human, for this He had as man, and through this He merited our redemption. Hence the Sixth Synod, in acts IV and X, proves that there were two wills in Christ, human and divine, and that the human was subjected to the divine through obedience, and asserts that this is the exposition of Saint Athanasius, Saint Augustine, Saint Ambrose, and Saint Leo, with their words being cited.
Indeed, Christ's human will, though one in itself, was nevertheless in virtue and operation as it were twofold: namely, one natural, by which He was fleeing from death; the other rational and free, by which, submitting Himself to God's will, He was seeking death, and according to this latter He was saying: "Nevertheless, not as I will," by the natural will, "but as Thou wilt," as if to say: By the rational will I subject My natural will to Your will, O Father, and I will nothing other than what You will. Wherefore Christ's natural will was conditional and ineffective, because only under condition — namely, if it should please God — was it desiring to escape death. But because this condition was not granted, this will was therefore void and ineffective. His rational will, however, was absolute and effective, because through it He absolutely and effectively was subjecting Himself to the divine will, in both material and formal object, because He was embracing death for the same reason for which God willed it, namely for the redemption of men. Christ's natural will, however, in its material object seemed contrary to the divine will, because it did not will death, which the divine will did will; yet in its rule and subordination it was conformed to the same, because it allowed itself to be governed and corrected by the rational will, and through this to be subjected to the divine will; and conversely God's will, just as much as the rational will of Christ as man, by deliberate and just reason willed that His natural will should express this ineffective act of horror of and flight from death, for the causes already stated: in every way, therefore, Christ's will willed what God willed it to wish and to will, and thus in all things it was conformed to the divine will. For God willed that Christ should become the expiation of the world, and therefore Christ made Himself the expiation of all crimes, as Eusebius teaches in book I of the Demonstration of the Gospel, chapter X.
Morally: Christ here teaches that the sole remedy for affliction is prayer and resignation to the divine will. Therefore in every temptation and tribulation we must take refuge in the help not of men but of God, who alone can — indeed desires to — free us from it or strengthen us in it for victory, if He is invoked, and if we submit ourselves humbly, reverently, and lovingly to His will, as befits sons. Whence Saint Leo, in Sermon 7 On the Passion, says: "This voice (Thy will be done) of the Head is the salvation of the whole body; this voice has instructed all the faithful, has kindled all the confessors, has crowned all the martyrs. For who could overcome the hatreds of the world, the whirlwinds of temptations, the terrors of persecutors, unless Christ, suffering in all and for all, said to the Father: Thy will be done?"
Verse 40: He Cometh to His Disciples, and Findeth Them Sleeping
40. AND HE COMETH TO HIS DISCIPLES, AND FINDETH THEM SLEEPING, AND HE SAITH TO PETER: SO ("so then," "is it really so") COULD YE NOT WATCH ONE HOUR WITH ME? — "He came to the disciples," both that He might gain some solace for His sorrow from their affection and conversation, though He knew it would be slight, indeed nearly nothing; and also that He might exercise care for His own and might teach Pastors and Bishops, even in the gravest affliction, to take care of their own — indeed, to visit them even when prayer is interrupted.
"Sleeping," out of grief and sorrow, as Luke has it, especially because it was now [night, which induces sleep — sentence continues onto next page]...
...night, which induces sleep. "To Peter," because he, being the head of the rest, more boldly than the others had pledged his loyalty and aid to Christ, even unto death.
SO COULD YOU NOT? — Note here how gently and modestly Christ rebukes His own and rouses them to vigilance. He does not reproach; nor does He say: You faithless, you torpid, you inert, why do you sleep in this my final crisis? Where are your splendid promises? Where is your faith? Where your constancy? But: "So could you not?" — as if to say: You did indeed wish to keep watch, but sleep arising from grief overcame you; therefore I ascribe this sleep not to your will, but to your weakness and infirmity: come, then, rouse your spirits, conquer your infirmity, shake off sleep.
Mystically, Saint Irenaeus, book IV, chapter 39: "Christ, coming, awakened and raised them up, signifying that His Passion is the awakening of those who sleep." For who, however wicked, would not be roused to grief, seeing Christ grieving for him and suffering things so bitter?
Verse 41: Watch and Pray, That You Enter Not Into Temptation
41. WATCH AND PRAY, THAT YOU ENTER NOT INTO TEMPTATION, — by which, with fear thrown upon you by the Jews, you may deny, abandon, and flee Me. As if to say: If My dangers do not move you, let your own move you. For behold, the gravest temptation to deny Me bears down upon you. Watch therefore and pray, that you may overcome it, "because," as Origen says, "he who is more spiritual ought to be more solicitous, lest his great good have a grave fall." Behold this is the remedy of every temptation which Christ assigns me [for us]: namely, vigilance to foresee and to discern the arts and frauds of the devil and of those who tempt us, and prayer and the imploring of divine help to overcome them. "That you enter not into temptation," that is, that, when temptation presses, you be not snared and taken, as birds are caught in a snare and fish on a hook, which they enter and undergo for the sake of food. He does not say: That you be not tempted; for this is often neither in our power, nor in God's will. For God wills us to be tempted, that He may prove our faith, and increase our virtue by struggle, and bring upon us merits and crowns; but "that you enter not into temptation," that is, in such a way that it might occupy, possess, and dominate you. "He enters into temptation," says Theophylact, "who is absorbed by temptation, and falls under its power." And Saint Jerome: "That you enter not into temptation, that is," he says, "that temptation may not overcome and conquer you, and hold you, ensnared in sin, within its nets."
THE SPIRIT INDEED IS WILLING, BUT THE FLESH IS WEAK. — He speaks of spirit and flesh, not His own, but Peter's and the Apostles'. Thus Saint Hilary, as if to say: I know that in spirit and mind you are indeed willing and ready to cleave to Me, even if the Jews threaten you with death; but know that your flesh is weak. He calls "flesh" both the flesh properly so called — whence the Syriac translates "the body indeed is weak" — and the sensitive appetite and the natural affection of the flesh, which flees persecution, suffering, and death, and is weak and feeble for overcoming these, while it is very robust and strong for the wealth, honors, and delights which it desires. Pray therefore that the weak flesh may not weaken your spirit and compel you to deny Me, but that God by His grace may so strengthen both your spirit and your flesh that they may be not only ready, but also strong to overcome all adversities, so that for My sake you may even eagerly desire death and bravely face it. "Therefore," says Saint Jerome, "as much as we trust in the ardor of the mind, so much let us fear concerning the frailty of the flesh." Wherefore a certain other [author] takes "the spirit" to mean the devil, and "the flesh" man, as if to say: The tempter, the devil, is strong for tempting, but man is weak for resisting his temptation. Furthermore Origen: "The flesh of all," he says, "is weak; but the spirit of not all men is willing, but only of the Saints, who by a willing spirit mortify the works of the flesh." Mark adds: "And they (the Apostles) knew not what to answer Him," because they were perplexed and overwhelmed, weighed down on this side by grief and on that by sleep, and were destitute of mind and counsel.
Verse 42: My Father, If This Chalice May Not Pass Unless I Drink It, Thy Will Be Done
42. AGAIN A SECOND TIME HE WENT AWAY, AND PRAYED, SAYING: MY FATHER, IF THIS CHALICE MAY NOT PASS UNLESS I DRINK IT, THY WILL BE DONE. — Christ in this second prayer prayed the same thing as in the first, as is clear from Mark. He therefore said: "My Father, if it can be done, let this chalice pass from Me; nevertheless, not as I will, but as Thou." But Matthew omitted the earlier part of the prayer, as ineffective and void, in order to establish the latter part — in which the whole force and efficacy of Christ's prayer consists — and to set it before us for our imitation. For absolutely Christ desired and prayed to drink the cup of His Passion, decreed and appointed for Him by God's will. For He plainly and entirely asked that God's will might be fulfilled in Him in all things and through all.
Verse 43: And He Cometh Again, and Findeth Them Sleeping
43. AND HE COMETH AGAIN, AND FINDETH THEM SLEEPING; FOR THEIR EYES WERE HEAVY, — with grief, as it were equally as with watching and fatigue, and thence with sleep. "For it was night, and that the dead of night," says Chrysostom, who also adds that Christ here did not rebuke them, "signifying their great infirmity."
Verse 44: He Went Away Again, and Prayed a Third Time, Saying the Same Words
44. AND LEAVING THEM, HE WENT AWAY AGAIN, AND PRAYED A THIRD TIME, SAYING THE SAME WORDS. — "A third time": first, that He might show the vehemence of His sorrow, by which, with Judas now imminent to betray Him, He was so distressed that, undergoing the agony of death, He sweated blood from it, and on this account an angel strengthened Him, as Luke teaches in 22:41-42, on which more there. For all these things happened in the third prayer of Christ alone, not in the first and second as well, as Jansenius would have it.
Second, that He might teach that in affliction God sometimes does not hear us in our first prayer, so that we may pray more often and more fervently: wherefore we must then [know] that the prayer must be [doubled and tripled — sentence continues onto next page]...
...[the prayer must be] doubled and tripled, until we are heard by God and obtain what we ask. Perseverance therefore crowns the work, especially of prayer. If Christ the Lord was not heard by the Father in His first and second prayer, what wonder if we little men are not heard at once in our prayer? Let us therefore persevere in prayer, and so we shall experience the fruit of prayer which Christ felt, namely God's consolation through angels, the calming of sorrow, magnanimity to attack and overcome adversities of our own accord. Christ therefore here teaches us the manner, the perseverance, and the fruit of prayer.
Symbolically: first, Remigius: "Christ," he says, "prays three times for the Apostles, and most of all for Peter, who was to deny Him three times." Second, Rabanus: "Therefore," he says, "the Lord prayed three times, that we might pray for pardon of past sins, for protection from present evils, and for caution against future dangers; and that we might direct every prayer to the Father, and to the Son, and to the Holy Spirit; and that our spirit, soul, and body might be kept whole." Third, Saint Augustine, in Questions on the Gospels, on this passage: "It is not absurdly understood," he says, "that on account of the threefold temptation of the Passion, the Lord prayed three times. For just as the temptation of desire is threefold, so also the temptation of fear is threefold. To desire which lies in curiosity, the fear of death is opposed: for as in that there is an eagerness for things to be known, so in this there is a fear of losing such knowledge. To the desire of honor or praise is opposed the fear of disgrace and insults; and to the desire of pleasure is opposed the fear of pain."
Verse 45: Sleep Ye Now and Take Your Rest: Behold the Hour Is at Hand
45. THEN HE COMETH TO HIS DISCIPLES, AND SAITH TO THEM: SLEEP YE NOW AND TAKE YOUR REST; BEHOLD THE HOUR IS AT HAND, AND THE SON OF MAN SHALL BE BETRAYED INTO THE HANDS OF SINNERS.
THEN HE CAME. — Christ, having been strengthened in His third prayer by an angel, dismissed the sorrow, agony, and sweat of blood which He had taken on of His own accord, and resumed His former mind and spirit, and generously composed Himself wholly to the Passion, and going forward of His own accord to meet Judas and the Jews, surrendered Himself, as I shall say at Luke 22:41-42.
SLEEP YE NOW AND TAKE YOUR REST. — Saint Chrysostom and his followers, Theophylact and Euthymius, think this was said by Christ ironically, as if to say: In this extreme danger and agony, both yours and Mine, there is no time for sleeping, but for watching, if ever: wherefore shake off sleep, awake, behold Judas is here with his attendants to seize Me. For Christ seems to have said these things as Judas drew near and was almost present, whence there follows: "Behold, the hour is at hand, and the Son of Man shall be betrayed."
On the other hand, more simply from Mark, Saint Augustine in book III of the Harmony of the Gospels, chapter 4, and from him Bede, think it was said in earnest by Christ — namely that, having compassion on the weakness of the Apostles, He granted them a little sleep, until, as Judas drew near, He said, "It is enough," as Mark adds; and, as Matthew adds, "Rise, let us go." Hence in Greek it is καθεύδετε τὸ λοιπόν, that is, "sleep what remains," that is, "sleep for the brief time that remains," until the coming of Judas; the Syriac: "sleep still," that is, "continue to sleep," as if Christ said these things while Judas was still farther off, conceding to the Apostles a time for sleep.
BEHOLD THE HOUR HAS DRAWN NEAR (fixed from eternity by God the Father, and decreed for My Passion and martyrdom), AND (that is, in which) THE SON OF MAN SHALL BE BETRAYED (in Greek παραδίδοται, that is, "is being betrayed," i.e., is just now to be betrayed) INTO THE HANDS OF SINNERS — κατ' ἐξοχήν and by antonomasia, namely those who are the supreme sinners and the most wicked of men, such as were Judas and the Jews raging against Christ, God and Lord, that they might torture and slay Him. For never was there a more wicked race than that Jewish race in the time of Christ; and therefore Christ had decreed to be born and to die in that time, that He might suffer more and more atrocious things from such wicked men. For His supreme goodness willed to contend and as it were enter a duel with the supreme malice of the Jews, that in it as in the head He might vanquish all malice and subject it to Himself — indeed, that He might heal it and convert it into goodness. Wherefore in this Christ's divine clemency shone forth wonderfully, just as much as His power, in that He soon converted to Himself, through Saint Peter and the Apostles, those Jews so wicked and hostile to Him, and made them Saints, and eminent ones at that — Acts 2:41 and following.
Verse 46: Rise, Let Us Go: Behold He Is at Hand That Will Betray Me
46. RISE, LET US GO: BEHOLD HE IS AT HAND THAT WILL BETRAY ME. — The Apostles were sitting, or were leaning on their elbows the more conveniently to sleep. Christ therefore commands them to rise, not to flee with Him, but to go out to meet Judas. Hence it is clear that Christ, having been heard and strengthened by God through an angel in His third prayer, shook off sorrow and agony, and with a great and noble spirit went out to meet Judas, death, and the cross. For as Origen says: "He saw in spirit Judas the traitor approaching, whom His disciples did not yet see." "Thus," says Chrysostom, "He instructs the disciples on every side that this thing was not a matter of necessity nor of infirmity, but of a certain inestimable dispensation; for He foreknew that they were coming, and not only did He not flee, but He even went out to meet them."
Therefore Christ here, by going out to meet His enemies — just as in all the rest of His Passion — left for us three things especially to note and observe: first, His innocence: for an innocent man does not flee from the investigators of a crime, since he is conscious of being well [in conscience], and therefore goes out to meet them with spirit and boldness; but the guilty flees, because his conscience accuses him and makes him afraid. Second, His majesty, providence, and power, by which as Lord He ordains and foretells the enemies' approach, yet in such a way that He moderates and directs their fury, so that they can do no more, and nothing other, than what was permitted, predicted, and preordained by Him. Third, the will by which He offers Himself of His own accord to Judas,...
...lest He should be thought to suffer and die for us out of weakness or unwillingly, but rather with the greatest dignity, humiliation, and generous love. "Rise," therefore, not that we may flee, but that we may "go" to meet Judas, and, as Saint Jerome says, "go forth of our own accord to death."
Morally: Christ here teaches that in persecution and tribulation our spirits must be roused, and we must courageously go out to meet it. For this is the heroic act of fortitude, which by its courage greatly breaks the atrocity of the impending evil, and by willingly embracing it tames and subdues it, and disposes and prepares a man for great things: for grave things are by far more easily, and with greater merit, tolerated and overcome by a great spirit, than light things by a little one; just as a giant or a man of great strength more easily carries a weight of 40 pounds than a boy of small strength bears a burden of three. Whence the Poet:
Yield not to evils, but go against them all the more boldly;
as a lion, with closed eyes, charges enemies and their drawn swords. Whence Pliny, book VIII, chapter 16: "When a lioness fights for her cubs, [she] is said to fix the keenness of her eyes upon the ground, so as not to be terrified by the hunting-spears." The cross therefore follows him who flees, and flees him who follows — what is commonly said about honor, but in a different respect.
Verse 47: Behold Judas, One of the Twelve, Came, and With Him a Great Multitude
47. AS HE YET SPOKE, BEHOLD JUDAS, ONE OF THE TWELVE, CAME, AND WITH HIM A GREAT MULTITUDE WITH SWORDS AND CLUBS, SENT FROM THE CHIEF PRIESTS AND THE ANCIENTS OF THE PEOPLE. — Saint John explains it more clearly at 18:2, saying: "And Judas also, who betrayed Him, knew the place, because Jesus had often resorted thither together with His disciples. Judas therefore having received a cohort and servants from the chief priests and the Pharisees, came thither with lanterns and torches and weapons."
AS HE YET SPOKE. — That the truth of His own prediction and predestination concerning His betrayal and Passion might be fulfilled. For He so wove all these things together, fittingly weaving the malice of Judas and the Jews into the web of His Passion, that the whole appears woven and embroidered by Him, partly by permission, partly by positive [will].
BEHOLD JUDAS, ONE OF THE TWELVE. — "Behold" is the mark of a new, marvelous, and unheard-of thing, as if to say: Behold a portent unheard of in all ages. Behold the stupendous crime of Judas. For Judas, one of the Apostles, was made not only a thief and a robber, but also Christ's betrayer and the leader of the brigands who put Christ to death. Whence Luke adds: "He went before them," as the leader and standard-bearer of the wicked.
A GREAT MULTITUDE. — Namely, a cohort of Roman soldiers together with the servants of the chief priests and Pharisees, as is clear from John, whose words I have cited.
AND WITH CLUBS. — In Greek ξύλων, that is "with woods," both those tipped with iron — as spears, lances, and javelins are — and those without iron, as clubs; for such were the weapons of ancient men.
See here the stupidity and madness of Judas and the Jews. Judas knew that Christ was the supreme Prophet, indeed the Son of God, who could be conquered by no weapons; and the chief Jews had often experienced this. Yet, blinded by greed and fury, they bring armed soldiers to do violence to Christ God and to seize Him violently and bind Him. Do you, O Judas, mean to conquer and bind God Himself? Do you mean to bind, seize, and carry off the Almighty? Do you, O little men, mean to fight against your Creator and force Him by arms to surrender into your hands? "For greed," says Saint Chrysostom, "sent this fury into him (Judas); greed makes all who serve it cruel and atrocious. For if the greedy man neglects his own salvation, what will he do about another's?"
Verse 48: Whomsoever I Shall Kiss, That Is He
48. AND HE THAT BETRAYED HIM GAVE THEM A SIGN, SAYING: WHOMSOEVER I SHALL KISS, THAT IS HE (Jesus, whom you seek to seize, whom I have pledged to deliver to you), HOLD HIM. — The Syriac: "Take Him"; the Greek κρατήσατε, that is, "lay hold of, occupy, seize, retain Him," lest He slip from your hands, as He has done at other times. Hence Mark adds: "And lead Him away cautiously"; for Judas was afraid, says Saint Jerome from Origen, lest Christ, transforming Himself, should hide Himself or escape, and so he should be deprived of the thirty pieces of silver promised him by the chief priests; for those had not yet been delivered to Judas by them, but only promised, as is sufficiently gathered from verse 15, where it says, "they appointed," that is, agreed and promised, "to him thirty pieces of silver."
HE GAVE THEM A SIGN, — so that the Roman soldiers, who had never seen Christ, or at least had not known Him, might recognize Him by this sign, says Theophylact; for it was night. Perhaps also because of the resemblance of Christ's face to the face of one of the Apostles, namely James the Less, who was called the brother of the Lord. So some more recent [authors], who however do not produce any ancient witness or authority for this resemblance.
I SHALL KISS. — Origen says it is a tradition that Christ had two faces, one natural and customary, the other proper and secret, which He assumed at will, such as that which He displayed in His Transfiguration. Therefore he thinks that Judas designated Christ by this sign of a kiss because he was afraid that Christ might transform His face, so that He could not be recognized by the Jews. But this is said gratuitously and is irrelevant: both because Judas was not present at Christ's Transfiguration, and so did not see that other face of Christ; and because, even if he had been present, he might rightly have feared that Christ, by changing His face, might also deceive him as well, so that he could not recognize Him, or at any rate might hide Himself and become invisible, as he knew He had done at other times. The causes of the kiss therefore were those which I gave earlier.
Verse 49: And Forthwith Coming to Jesus, He Said: Hail, Rabbi
49. AND FORTHWITH COMING TO JESUS, HE SAID: HAIL (in Greek χαῖρε, that is, "greeting"), RABBI (the Arabic: "hail, master"), AND HE KISSED HIM. — Judas knew from the words of Christ at the Supper that he and his betrayal...
[For Judas knew from the words of Christ at the Supper that he and his] betrayal were known to Christ; yet, in order to cover this outwardly before the other Apostles as far as he could, he pretended to give Christ his accustomed kiss of friendship and reverence. For the kiss was once a greeting, or a manner of greeting, among the Hebrews, the Romans, and other peoples, as is clear from the writers. Whence it is likely that the Apostles greeted Christ with this symbol of a kiss when they returned to Him from elsewhere. Therefore, after the example of Christ, the early Christians used to greet one another with a chaste and holy kiss, as Tertullian teaches in his book On Prayer, and indeed Paul, 1 Corinthians 16:20. See what is said there. But Judas most wickedly abused this symbol of friendship for his treachery and betrayal, persuaded — as Chrysostom says — by Christ's gentleness, that he would not be repulsed from His kiss; or that if he were repulsed, nevertheless by this sign of an offered kiss repulsed by Christ, he would point Him out to the Jews, and would deliver Him over to be seized as uncivil and inhuman. Whence Victor of Antioch, on Mark 14:45: "To Him for whom he was constructing deadly snares, the wretched man was offering a greeting with a kiss." And Saint Jerome (or whoever the author is, for it is not Jerome of Stridon) at the same place: "Giving the sign of a kiss with the venom of guile."
Furthermore Christ, although He felt and grieved vehemently that He was being betrayed and given up by Judas, His own disciple, with a feigned kiss of goodwill, nevertheless did not spurn him as he kissed, nor did He refuse the kiss, but to the man offering a fraudulent and hostile [kiss] He returned a sincere and friendly one. First, "lest He should seem to refuse the betrayal," says Saint Ambrose on Luke 22:47, but rather of His own accord, out of His desire to suffer more and more shameful things for us, He embraced it. Second, that He might soften and prick the heart of Judas: "That He might more affect the betrayer, to whom He would not refuse the offices of love," says Ambrose in the same place. Third, "that we might be taught to love all enemies, even those whom we know are going to rage savagely against us, the Lord did not spurn his kiss," says Saint Hilary. For Christ did not hate Judas, though he was a betrayer, but loved him and grieved more over his crime and perdition than over His own betrayal, and therefore He earnestly sought by these words to bend him to repentance. For just as fire hidden in steel is drawn out if you strike it with flint, so from Christ, struck and suffering, hidden love flashes forth, and a wondrous affection of charity toward His enemies. Whence in His whole Passion, above all the divine virtues, love shone forth, the sign of which was His immense grief. Whence the verse:
Do you see how love is sculpted in His whole body?
Verse 50: Friend, Wherefore Art Thou Come?
50. AND JESUS SAID TO HIM: FRIEND, WHEREFORE ART THOU COME? — As if to say: If you have come to betray Me to the Jews, as I know you have come, why, being so much My enemy, do you give Me so friendly a kiss? But if you have come to greet Me in a friendly way after the usual manner, why, as a friend, do you bring so many enemies against Me? Whence Saint Augustine, in Sermon 1 On the Passion: "You kiss," he says, "and you set snares; you feign to be a friend when you are a betrayer." Hence Luke adds that Christ added: "Judas, dost thou betray the Son of Man with a kiss?" These words, full both of majesty and of charity, ought to have split the stony heart of Judas, had he not hardened and obstinately steeled it like adamant in his crime. Furthermore, the Syriac translates: "Hast thou come for this, my companion?" Namely, to betray and give Me, your master, your Lord and your God, over to the Jews? The Arabic: "Ho! Wherefore art thou come?"
This was a wonderful example of Christ's gentleness and patience, by which He tolerated Judas the thief and traitor for three years, and did not deprive him of his apostleship or his procuratorship, nor did He disclose his crime to anyone, since it was hidden. By this deed He has taught us to do the same, that we should not avenge an injury done to us, but conquer it by love.
The Saints imitated Christ — namely, Saint Martin, who with wonderful gentleness used to tolerate and overcome all who wronged him. Hence, when his cleric Britius was constantly slandering and persecuting him, he endured him with such gentleness that the rest of his servants marveled that so impious a cleric was not chastised by his Bishop nor deprived of office. To them he said: "Christ the Lord endured Judas the betrayer; shall I not endure Britius the slanderer?" By this gentleness of his he converted Britius, and merited from God that Britius, correcting his ways, should become a holy man and should succeed him in the bishopric, as he himself foretold to him. So Sulpicius, in the Life of Saint Martin.
Here, in the proper order of the history, should be woven in what John supplies about the Jews being thrown to the ground by Christ. For thus he says in chapter 18, verse 4: "Jesus therefore, knowing all things that should come upon Him, went forth, and said to them: Whom seek ye? They answered Him: Jesus of Nazareth. Jesus saith to them: I am He. And Judas also, who betrayed Him, stood with them. As soon therefore as He had said to them: I am He, they went backward and fell to the ground. Again therefore He asked them: Whom seek ye? And they said: Jesus of Nazareth. Jesus answered: I have told you that I am He; if therefore you seek Me, let these go their way: that the word might be fulfilled which He said: Of them whom Thou hast given Me, I have not lost any one."
In order therefore to reconcile John with Matthew and the others, this was the order of what happened: Judas, lest he should seem to be Christ's betrayer, went a few paces ahead of the crowds which had come with him to seize Christ, so that he might appear not to be one of them, but as if returning from elsewhere and coincidentally meeting the arrival of the crowds: whence, as if returning from abroad, he kissed Christ. Christ offered the kiss, but in order to prick him, said: "Friend, wherefore art thou come?" — namely, to My death, but more to your own perdition and unending Gehenna. And, in order to confound him, He added: "Judas, dost thou betray the Son of Man with a kiss?" Then Judas, after the kiss, withdrew back to the crowds he had brought, so that, as Jesus boldly went out to meet the hostile crowds, Judas...
the traitor was now standing with them, as John says. Soon Jesus freely and intrepidly asks them whom they seek. They answer Him: "Jesus of Nazareth." Jesus says: "I am He": at which word, as though struck by a thunderbolt, both Judas and all the crowds and His pursuers were cast prostrate to the ground — and that backwards and in reverse, so that they fell not on their faces, but supine on their backs, that it might be plain to all that they, as enemies of Christ, were beaten down and dashed to the earth by His might and power. Christ then permitted them to recover their strength and rise, and asked again whom they sought; and as they once more said that they were seeking Jesus, He added: "I told you that I am He. If, therefore, you seek Me, let these go their way," thus showing that He took greater care for His own than for Himself. At this word, the soldiers and servants approached Jesus, and laid hands and bonds upon Him. Seeing this, Peter draws a sword and cuts off Malchus' ear; but Christ rebukes him and restores the ear to Malchus, as I shall presently set forth more fully on verse 51.
Here note, with St. Chrysostom and Cyril, on John 18 (although St. Augustine and Ammonius hold otherwise), that the eyes of the cohort and the officers were so divinely held in stupor that they could not recognize Christ — though Judas had just pointed Him out by a kiss, though He came forth to meet them, and though many of them had often seen and known Him before — much less could they arrest Him. This is gathered from the fact that, when Jesus asked them: "Whom do you seek?" they did not answer, "We seek You," but: "Jesus of Nazareth," as if He were unknown and unseen. Nay, S. Chrysostom, Cyril, and Theophylact on John 18, and likewise Leontius and Theodoret in the Catena of the Greeks, hold that not even Judas himself then recognized Christ; they gather this from John 18:5: "And Judas also, who betrayed Him, was standing with them." For Judas, after giving the kiss to Jesus, drew back to the cohort, that he might signal them — since they were tarrying and standing motionless from this stupor — to advance and rush upon Jesus, whom he had now pointed out to them by his kiss, so that he might receive the thirty pieces of silver promised him as the price of betraying Christ; in which act he openly displayed his impudence and treachery. But he drew back the more from the dread and horror struck into him by Christ, as well as by the consciousness of his crime. For Christ drove him away from Himself and from the company of His Apostles, that He might confound him, as if to say: Go, O traitor, to your henchmen; for you are unworthy of Me and of the fellowship of My own. Hence shortly afterward He cast Judas down with the cohort to the ground. This, then, was Christ's first miracle, by which, in His arrest, He displayed His own majesty and divine omnipotence, that Judas and the Jews might know that they had come in vain with cohort and arms, since Christ could not be taken by force unless He should freely and graciously give Himself into their hands. With a like stupor God smote the Sodomites, Gen. 19:11. "You see," says Chrysostom, "the unconquerable power: how, standing in their midst, the glory of Christ shone forth, who, though He offered Himself to those who were seeking Him, was nevertheless not at all recognized."
Symbolically, St. Augustine on John 18: "The everlasting Day," he says, "was so hidden from human eyes in darkness that He was sought with lanterns and torches, to be slain by the darkness."
Christ's second miracle, says St. Chrysostom, was that by the single word "I am He" He cast Judas with all his retainers prostrate to the ground, supine on their backs, and (as St. Leo, Sermon 1 On the Passion, suggests) deprived them of the power of feeling and moving, so that they could not lift themselves up, support themselves, or guide themselves — as happens with paralytics. Hear St. Leo, Sermon 1: "'I am He,' He says: which word so struck and overthrew that band, gathered from the most savage of men, as with a sort of lightning bolt, that all those fierce, threatening, and terrible men were driven back and fell down. Where was the conspiracy of cruelty? Where the heat of their wrath? Where the array of arms? The Lord says, 'I am He,' and at the sound of His voice the crowd of the impious is laid low. What, then, will His majesty be able to do when He comes to judge, whose lowliness about to be judged was able to do this?"
Hence, although the "I am He" means simply, "I am Jesus, whom you are seeking," Rupert nevertheless expounds it thus: "I am He who is" — that is, eternally, from everlasting — and therefore Almighty God, Exodus 3. Moreover, St. Jerome, Epistle 140 to Principia, holds that Christ struck down and laid prostrate these officers by a certain heavenly splendor of His countenance: "Unless," he says, "He had had in His face and eyes something star-like, the Apostles would never have followed Him at once, nor would those who came to seize Him have fallen down."
Allegorically: this prostration of Judas with his men signified the irreparable fall of the Jews, in that, out of hatred for Christ, they were obstinate in their perfidy and almost incapable of salvation. Hence Cyril, on John 18: "That fall," he says, "was an image of the fall of all who set themselves against Christ, upon whom an utterly terrifying fall is hanging." And St. Augustine, in the same place: "Where now," he says, "is the cohort of soldiers? where the terror and the rampart of arms? One voice struck, repelled, and laid low — without a single weapon — a crowd ferocious with hatred and terrible with arms: for God lay hidden in the flesh. What will He do when He comes to judge, who, when He came to be judged, could do this?"
Tropologically: here is represented the fall of the reprobate; for these fall on their backs, so that they cannot rise again, while the elect, if they sin, fall on their faces, because they soon, touched by God, rise up in repentance. So St. Gregory, Homily 8 on Ezekiel: "We fall on our face," he says, "because we blush at the evils which we remember having committed. For there a man falls where he is put to shame." The same, Moral. XIII, ch. 10: "To fall on one's face," he says, "is, in this life, for each one to acknowledge his own faults and to bewail them in penance. But to fall backward, so as not to seem to be falling, is to depart suddenly from this life and to be ignorant of the punishments to which one is being led." Again, the just fall on their faces, who look toward the things which
lie ahead — namely, the things to come and the last things — whereas sinners fall backward, who pursue the things that lie behind and pass away and are at once made past, namely the perishable goods. So St. Gregory, Moral. XXXIII, ch. 23: "That which is behind," he says, "is everything that passes away; that which is in front, however, is everything that is coming and abides."
Christ's third miracle, as St. Chrysostom and St. Augustine note (Tract 112 on John), was that by His own mighty providence and the efficacy of His word — "let these go their way" — He brought it about that the Jews seized none of the disciples — not even Peter, who was brandishing a sword and cutting off an ear. For He, offering Himself alone to death, willed that the disciples should be free, as a Good Shepherd Who alone was about to give His life for the sheep. Hence St. Chrysostom: "Who," he says, "held the Jews back from seizing the disciples? No one else than He who by His power had cast them backward."
The fourth was the sudden restoration and healing of Malchus' ear, of which presently. Here note how great was the blindness and malice of the Jews, who, having seen so many miracles of Christ, immediately dared to lay hands upon Him.
It is a hysteron proteron, or at any rate these words must be taken not of an act already completed but of one just begun, as if to say: Then they approached Jesus and began to prepare themselves to lay hands upon Him and to hold Him fast and seize Him. For before they actually seized Him, Peter, in order to hinder His capture, cut off Malchus' ear; but Jesus checked him and restored Malchus' ear, and only then did He at length offer Himself to the Jews to be seized and bound, when He had reproached them, saying: "You have come out as against a robber," as I shall show on verse 55, and as is plain from Luke 22:53–54.
One — namely Peter, more fervent and high-spirited than the rest, as is clear from John 18. So St. Jerome, Chrysostom, and others. Luke adds that Peter had first asked Christ's leave, saying: "Lord, shall we strike with the sword?" — that is, if it please You, we will defend You with the sword; but without waiting for Christ's reply, on account of the impending danger of His capture, in his ardor he drew his sword.
Drew. — The Syriac: "unsheathed the sword."
You will ask: what and what sort of sword was this? Toletus, on John 18:10, holds that this sword of St. Peter was a knife, of the kind which the Apostles had used in the slaying or eating of the lamb. St. Chrysostom, Theophylact, John Major, and Jansenius (on Matthew 26) favor this view; for it is with a knife that flesh is cut and ears severed. Dionysius the Carthusian is doubtful; at Venice this sword is shown, having the appearance of a large knife, and a similar one is preserved at Siena.
But Franciscus Lucas, on Matthew 26, expressly maintains that this sword was a war-sword (ensis). St. Cyril, St. Augustine, Tertullian, Hilary, Jerome, Bede, Baronius, and St. Ambrose favor this view; and thus is shown at Paris this sword of St. Peter, having the form of a war-sword.
Tertullian, in his book On Idolatry, ch. 19, says: "How shall he wage war, nay how even in peace shall he serve as a soldier, without the sword which the Lord has taken away? etc. The Lord, by disarming Peter, ungirded every soldier." Therefore Peter's sword was a soldier's and warrior's sword — therefore a war-sword; for it is with this that soldiers wage war, not with a knife. The words of St. Augustine, in his XXII books Against Faustus, are: "He had commanded that His disciples should carry steel, but had not commanded that they should strike." Steel — that is, a war-sword: for it is this that strikes the enemy in combat; whereas a knife rather cuts or pierces than strikes. The words of St. Jerome are: "With that sword (Peter used) which is turned about, fiery, before paradise, and with the sword of the spirit which is described as in God's armor," Ephesians 6:16. Both are military and war-swords, as is plain. Zacharias, bishop of Chrysopolis, in his Concord of the Gospels, has the same words from St. Jerome. The words of St. Hilary are: "He bids the sword be sheathed because He was about to destroy them not by a human sword but by the sword of His own mouth": and the sword of Christ's mouth is a war-sword, as is plain from Apoc. 1:16 and 19:15. The words of St. Ambrose, when he expounds these two swords mystically, are: "Let us understand the one as the New, the other as the Old Testament, with which we are armed against the devil's snares"; but we are armed against the enemy with a war-sword, not a knife — and both Testaments are likened not to a small knife, but to a mighty sword.
Allegorically: throughout, the interpreters take the two swords as the twofold power of the Church, spiritual and temporal. The same is found in the Extravagant Unam Sanctam, On Majority and Obedience. The same is taught by John Major, on Matthew 26. Hence also St. Paul, when teaching that one must obey the magistrate: "For he does not bear the sword in vain; for he is God's avenger to wreak wrath," Romans 13. But he bears a war-sword, not a knife.
Again, by this sword is signified excommunication, which lops a man off from the Church: this is done by a war-sword, not a knife.
Many think that Peter, in his fervor, wished to cut off or split open Malchus' head, but that under God's guidance the blow fell upon the ear; and a head is split with a war-sword, not a knife. So judge Paul of Palacios, Jansenius, and John Major (on Matthew 26), and Didacus Stella (on Luke 22). Hence also, as Malchus was ducking the blow, Peter cut off his right ear — though otherwise he would have had to cut off the left, since that was opposite to and facing his right hand.
Tropologically: St. Ambrose takes this sword as martyrdom: "There is also," he says, "a sword of the passion, by which you put off the body, and by the spoils of the immolated flesh the sacred crown of martyrdom is purchased for you." Indeed,
for the martyrs are beheaded with a war-sword, not a knife.
Reasons are added. First: this sword is called by all the Evangelists everywhere in Greek μάχαιρα; and this denotes a war-sword.
Second: Christ orders the cloak to be sold so that a sword may be bought; now to buy a knife it is not necessary to sell a cloak, but it is so for a war-sword, since its price is reckoned equal to a cloak.
Third: "He who shall take the sword shall perish by the sword," says Christ; and murderers are wont to be punished with death by the executioner's war-sword, not by a knife.
Fourth: Christ had ordered two swords to be brought for the public defense against the whole crowd of Jews and Roman soldiers; therefore they were war-swords. For what would two knives have availed against so great a crowd armed with war-swords? How would Peter, armed with a knife alone, have dared to attack it?
Fifth: among the Latins, gladius means a war-sword, not a knife; and it is so called from the slaughter (clades) which it inflicts upon a crowd, as the etymologists say.
Finally, the sword of St. Peter, says St. Chrysostom in his Encomium on the Chains of St. Peter (in Surius, August 1), is kept along with his chains in the royal palace, where a temple has been erected to the Apostle Peter, deposited in an inner place as a kind of sacred and heavenly treasure, which is wont to be set forth before emperors and the multitude of the faithful for the purpose of sanctification. For it confers heavenly grace, supplies an abundance of healings, and lifts up their souls.
Servant, — whose name was Malchus, says John 18. Peter sprang upon him rather than upon the others, because he saw him pressing in more boldly and insolently against Christ at close quarters; wherefore "he cut off the ear of the man who was rushing in upon him more savagely," says St. Leo, Sermon 1 On the Passion.
CUT OFF HIS EAR — the right one, as John and Luke have it: to signify, says Origen, that the Jews, in reading and hearing the holy Scripture, had lost their right ear, that is, the true understanding of heavenly things, and had retained the left, so that they perversely twist Scripture to carnal meanings.
Moreover St. Augustine, in his XXII books Against Faustus, ch. 70, says: Moses, after striking down the Egyptian, was made the leader of the Synagogue; Peter, after maiming Malchus, was made the Shepherd of the Church: each transgressed the rule, not by a detestable savagery, but by an animosity that admitted of correction. For Peter sinned by rashness, since without Christ's knowledge — nay, against Christ's will — he drew the sword, with which alone he could not defend Christ against so many armed soldiers and officers. Therefore by cutting off Malchus' ear he provoked them all the more to rage against Christ, and against Peter himself, had not Christ prevented it. Yet he showed his own ardor and zeal for Christ, though a faulty one; but with this fault of excess corrected at Pentecost, through it he merited to become the Shepherd and Prince of the Church.
Finally, Christ, rebuking Peter and forbidding him to go on fighting any further, restored the ear to Malchus, as Luke has it, where He gave a marvelous example both of His power and of His clemency — especially since, as Paul of Palacios here adds: "It is a theological maxim that whomsoever the Lord heals, He heals perfectly. If Christ healed Malchus both in ear and in mind, what greater token of charity could there be? What greater proof of an undisturbed soul?" Indeed, that several others of these persecutors of Christ, when Peter preached, repented and were converted to the faith of Christ, is plain from Acts 2:37. What wonder, then, if Malchus too — who had so manifestly experienced both the goodness and the power of Christ towards himself, from the ear restored to him by Christ — did the same? Christ did this, both that there might be no occasion for accusation that He had resisted the public lictors and ministers of justice, and as a heroic example of patience and gentleness, such as He likewise gave when He made Paul out of Saul.
Mystically the Gloss says: The ear of Malchus, cut off and healed, is the hearing renewed by the removal of the old man, which belongs to those who shall reign with Christ; whence also Malchus (Hebrew מלך melech) is the same as "king"; for servitude is the old man, and health is liberty.
Christ here chastises Peter's rashness in drawing his sword apart from — nay, against — His will. Peter's sin therefore was here twofold: first, that he struck against the will of Christ; second, that this blow was not so much defense as vengeance, by which he could not snatch Christ from so great a band of soldiers, but rather provoked them more keenly against Christ, and rashly exposed himself to the manifest peril of death — although Peter, carried away by zeal and fervor for the protection of Christ (says St. Chrysostom), did not consider these things or any of them, but rather remembered that Christ had a little while before ordered two swords to be taken; whence he inferred that He had ordered this with a view to His being defended. Therefore, by striking the servant who was assailing Christ, he supposed himself to be acting in accordance with Christ's mind. "Let vengeance cease," says the Interlinear Gloss, "let patience be displayed, that we may teach our own people patience, not vengeance."
"Shall have taken," in a completed act — that is, so as to strike, wound, or kill others. For otherwise, merely to take a sword is no evil, since it injures no one. Again, to take the sword by public authority for punishing the guilty — as magistrates do on the bench, and princes and soldiers in a just war — is lawful and honorable. By "sword" understand any kind of weapons and instruments of slaughter. So Euthymius.
SHALL PERISH BY THE SWORD. — That is, they are worthy to perish by the sword; they are guilty of death; by the law of retaliation they are to be punished with the sword. And this law is common to all nations, and is, as it were, a law of nature laid down by God immediately after the flood, Genesis 9:6: "Whoever shall shed [man's]
blood by the hand of man, his blood shall be shed." So Theophylact here, and St. Augustine in Questions on the Old and New Testament, ch. 104. Christ therefore here renews the most ancient law concerning the punishment of a murderer with death, and sanctions it anew; for He speaks as a new lawgiver of a new law.
Again, "they shall perish by the sword," because gladiators and murderers, by God's just judgment and vengeance, often actually do perish by the sword of God the Judge, or of enemies in war or in a duel, or by the bites of serpents or wild beasts, etc., as daily experience shows; and Plutarch confirms this with many examples in his book On the Slow Vengeance of the Deity. For this was the common conviction of the nations, even of the barbarians: hence the Maltese, seeing Paul attacked by a viper, said: "Surely this man is a murderer, for though he has escaped from the sea," Acts 28:4, "vengeance does not allow him to live."
Moreover, Christ here "hints," says Theophylact, "that the Jews, who were taking up the sword against Him, were going to perish by the Roman sword." For "shall perish," our translator reads in the Greek ἀπολοῦνται; others read ἀποθανοῦνται, that is, "shall die"; but the sense is the same.
Luke (ch. 22) adds that Christ said: "Suffer ye thus far," that is, cease to draw your swords any further: enough, O Apostles, has been struck, enough fought; for in this way we are accustomed to call out to two duelists, or to several quarreling and fighting, "Stop, that is enough," that they may not go on to further quarrels or fights.
Otherwise Cajetan, as if to say: "Suffer," that is, allow, O Apostles, Judas and the Jews to rage against Me "thus far" — that is, up to this their hour, this is, as long as this hour of theirs and the power of darkness lasts. From this Maldonatus and others gather that the other Apostles, seeing Peter so spiritedly fighting on behalf of Christ, themselves also wished to contend for Him, but were forbidden by Christ when He said: "Suffer ye thus far." "For He did not wish," says St. Ambrose on Luke 22, "to be defended by the wound of His persecutors, He who wished by His own wound to heal all." Hence the emblem: "Salvation from a wound" — which properly belongs to Christ, "by whose bruise we are healed," as St. Peter says.
This is the second reason by which Christ prevents the defense Peter was attempting, as if to say: I have no need of you as a defender, when I have at hand all the armies of the angels, of whom one alone is enough to lay all those men low — as when one of them slew 185,000 of the Assyrians, 4 Kings 19:35: "For," says Chrysostom, "if one angel killed a hundred and eighty-five thousand armed men, what would twelve legions of angels do against a thousand men? Thus He accommodated His speech to the weakness and fear of those who were already half-dead with dread." For Christ Himself, as God, had no need of the help of the angels — since, as Origen rightly observes, "the angels rather have need of the help of the only-begotten Son of God than He of them." Hence the saying, Daniel 7:10: "Thousands of thousands ministered to Him, and ten thousand times a hundred thousand stood before Him."
Moreover, "legion" is a term of the Roman soldiery, who in Christ's time held sway over Judaea and the Jews: it contained six thousand soldiers, says St. Jerome here, and Vegetius (Of Military Affairs, II, ch. 2); so twelve legions would make 72,000 angels. Others judge that a legion contained 12,500. For a legion, they say, contained ten cohorts; a cohort, fifty maniples; a maniple, twenty-five soldiers; on this reckoning twelve legions would make a hundred and fifty thousand angels.
Christ speaks sparingly and modestly. For He could truly have said: If I willed, My Father would at once give Me a hundred or a thousand million — nay, a hundred thousand million angels: for ten thousand times a hundred thousand stand before Him, as Daniel says. For the angels are innumerable, and so surpass the number of all creatures, even of all men who ever were, are, and shall be, as St. Dionysius teaches, On the Celestial Hierarchy, ch. 9; St. Thomas and the Schoolmen, I part., Question 50, art. 3.
Here Christ teaches us, in every danger, temptation, and affliction, to call upon the holy angels, especially our guardians: for they are most wise, most powerful, and most loving toward us, because they know that this is pleasing to God — nay, that it has been commanded them, according to that of Psalm 90: "He has given His angels charge over you, to keep you in all your ways." And Psalm 33: "The angel of the Lord shall encamp (Hebrew חונה chone, that is, shall pitch a camp) round about those who fear Him, and shall deliver them," — just as the camps of the angels delivered Jacob from the hand of Esau, Genesis 32:1 and 28:12, and Elisha from the hand of the Syrians, 4 Kings 6:17.
namely, that I, Christ, may be seized, suffer, and die for the redemption of men: "For if the Scripture too," says Chrysostom, "thinks fit that it be so, why do you resist?" This is the third reason by which Christ forbids Himself to be defended by arms — because the Scriptures prophesying of His passion must be fulfilled, such as that most beautiful one of Isaiah throughout chapter 53, and of David, Psalm 21, and of Daniel 9:26 ff. "Since then," says Origen, "He could have received the legions, He was unwilling to receive them, that through His patience the Scriptures prophesying of Him might be fulfilled, since it became Him so to suffer." For this reverence we owe to Holy Scripture as to the word of God: that we do not resist it, but consent to it and fulfill it in ourselves. You will say: Therefore the Jews did not sin in killing Christ, because they fulfilled the Scriptures foretelling His death. St. Athanasius answers, in his tract On the Passion and Cross, by denying the consequence: "For neither," he says, "in attend-
ing to the prophetic words did they dare these things against Christ, but they perpetrated them by their own zeal, willingly and gladly, so that not the Prophet is the author or cause of these things, but their own will; nay rather, they themselves were the cause that the Prophets foreknew such things about them." The Jews therefore perpetrated this sacrilege — this Christicide and deicide — out of their own crime, malice, and hatred toward Christ; and the Prophets, foreseeing it would come to pass, only foretold it: they did not approve it, nor command the Jews to do it. But God commanded Christ to take this hatred and slaughter of the Jews upon Himself by His suffering, and so make satisfaction for the sins of men. Whence the saying:
The action displeased, the passion was acceptable.
"The action (of the Jews) was displeasing; the passion (of Christ) was acceptable." Hence St. Leo, Sermon 1 On the Passion: "We owe you no thanks, O Jews," he says, "nor any to you, O Judas. To our salvation indeed your impiety has rendered service, though you did not will it so, and through you was done whatever the hand of counsel had decreed should be done; therefore the death sets us free, and accuses you: you alone deservedly do not possess what you wished should perish for all." See what is said on Acts 2:23.
St. John adds Christ's fourth reason, ch. 18:11, saying: "The chalice which My Father has given Me, do you not wish that I drink it?" — as if to say: God has decreed this chalice of the Passion from eternity, and now at this time presents it to Me; why then should I not eagerly take it from the hand of My God and joyfully drain it? Note: The passion and death which a little before, verse 39, Christ had begged be removed as a chalice of gall and most bitter, He here, knowing the will of the Father, embraces as a chalice of honey and most sweet. For what is sweeter than to obey God, to offer oneself to God as a holocaust, to make oneself a victim for the salvation of men? "How sweetly," says St. Bernard, Sermon 2 on Pentecost, "O Lord Jesus, did You converse with men, how abundantly did You bestow many and great goods on men, how bravely did You suffer for men things so unworthy and so harsh, that one may suck honey from the rock and oil from the hardest stone! Hard at His words, harder at His scourging, hardest at the horrors of the cross — because in all these things, like a lamb before its shearer, He was silent and did not open His mouth."
After Christ had chastised Peter and the Apostles for drawing their swords, He now likewise — and more sharply — chastises Judas and the Jews who wished to seize Him. Here He shows wonderful loftiness of spirit, freedom, and tranquility. For He said this while He was still free, before He was taken; and by these words He freely offered Himself to be bound by them. For this was the order of the event: when Judas and the Jews lay prostrate on the ground, Christ, after they had been allowed to rise, asked them again whom they were seeking. When they said "Jesus," He Himself said "I am He," and offered Himself to them to be seized. They came up to seize Him. Seeing this, Peter drew a sword and cut off Malchus' ear. Soon Christ checked him and broke off the fight, and at once restored Malchus' ear. Then turning to the Jews, He said: "As against a robber," etc. — as if to say: You ought to be ashamed that you come to seize Me as a robber, by night, with torches and lictors; for I am no thieving robber, but a public teacher of the Jews, who daily taught publicly in the temple — why did you not seize Me there? For I know well that, on account of My teaching, by which I rebuked the life and vices of the high priests and Pharisees, they sent you to seize Me. But certainly I also know that they did not dare to seize Me in the temple, for fear of the people, who hung upon My lips as upon those of a great Prophet. Come then, since you wish it so, seize Me here, by stealth, like a thieving robber: behold, I freely offer Myself to you, and freely give Myself into your hands; I give My body over to you as your prey — bind it, drag it, snatch it away, beat it, tear it, as you please. Receiving this authority from Christ, the henchmen drew near, bound and seized Christ, as Luke adds; and he also adds that Christ said: "But this is your hour, and the power of darkness" — that is, of the demons and of the impious, such as you are — as if to say: It is fitting that you come by night, in the darkness, to seize Me, because I am the Light of the world, and have publicly taught the light of truth in the light of day. But you, O impious Jews, because you are skulkers in darkness, and flee this light, and love the darkness of errors and vices, therefore seize Me in darkness. "Hence," says Bede, "you gather together against Me in darkness, because your power, with which you arm yourselves against the Light of the world, is in darkness." And Theophylact: "Truly," he says, "the works of night are being attempted, and your power is the power of darkness; and for this reason you observe this hour, which is fitting both for yourselves and for the deed by which you assault Me." For, as Christ says in John 3:19: "Everyone who does evil hates the light, and does not come to the light, lest his works should be reproved." Wherefore St. Leo, Sermon 8 On the Passion: "They rushed," he says, "upon the true Light, the sons of darkness, and using torches and lanterns they did not escape the night of their unbelief, because they did not understand the Author of light. They lay hold on Him who is ready to be held, and drag Him who wills to be dragged: who, if He had wished to resist, their impious hands would not have been able to do anything to harm Him; but the world's redemption would have been deferred, and He who was to die for the salvation of all would have saved no one if He had remained unhurt."
Moreover, it is plain from Luke that the Jews laid hands on Christ and seized and held Him not before, but after, these words of Christ; for Luke immediately after these words adds: "And taking Him, etc." That, therefore, Matthew, in verse 50, before Peter's striking and cutting off Malchus' ear,
immediately after the kiss of Judas, says: "Then they came up, and laid hands upon Him, and held Him" — this is said in an order partly direct and partly inverted and folded together. The phrase "then they came up" is said in direct order; the phrase "they laid hands upon Him and held Him," in inverted order. For this latter happened afterward — namely, after the cutting off and the healing of Malchus' ear: for if Christ had then been bound in His hands, He could not with those very hands have applied and restored the ear to Malchus' head. Matthew, of course, after his manner, wished to narrate the seizing of Christ in a single statement, so as not to be obliged to relate it a second time: therefore he relates at the same time what happened first, namely that they came up to seize Jesus, and what happened afterward, namely that they actually laid hands on Him and held Him.
Finally, how cruel, undeserved, and bitter to Christ this seizing of Him was can be estimated from many points.
First, that He was seized as a robber — He who was utterly innocent, and supremely beneficent toward all; nay, the Holy of Holies, and indeed, as God, infinite and uncreated purity and sanctity itself.
Second, that He was seized by the basest, worst, and most hostile men toward Him — such as were the Scribes and the Jews. From this can be conjectured how brutally He was bound by them like a beast — nay, like a robber — pushed, dragged about, mocked, beaten, and blasphemed.
Third, that the Apostles and all the others deserted Him, so that He gave Himself, alone like an innocent lamb, as a prey to the Jews.
Fourth, that by these His bonds He likewise wished to expiate and loose the bonds of our sins, which are most grievous and unyielding. Hence Jeremiah, pitying Him with groaning and sighing, says: "The breath of our mouth, Christ the Lord, has been taken in our sins, of whom we said: Under His shadow we shall live among the nations," Lamentations 4:20.
Fifth, that by these His chains He wished to encourage and obtain strength for Christians — especially for the Martyrs — that they might bravely endure prisons and chains and exult and glory in them, as Paul glories, Ephesians 3:1. See here St. Chrysostom. The chains of many Martyrs were indeed dreadful, but those of Christ were far more dreadful, that by surpassing the dreadfulness of the Martyrs He might soften it.
Moreover, that this crowd consisted of a thousand soldiers, together with many henchmen and officers of the high priests, is clear from John 18:12, where he says: "The cohort, and the tribune, and the officers of the Jews seized Jesus, and bound Him." For a cohort contained a thousand soldiers; whence for "tribune," the Greek has χιλίαρχος, that is, the commander of a thousand soldiers.
These words are not Christ's, as Chrysostom would have it, but Matthew's, repeating and confirming the words of Christ in verse 54, for the elucidation of the narrative and the commendation of Christ — as if to say: This unworthy seizing of Christ and the [other things…
and the other things which Christ suffered did not happen to Him by the violence of the soldiers, nor even by chance and accident, but from the determined preordination, counsel, and decree of God, who, having foreseen the malice of the Jews from eternity, decreed each of Christ's torments and willed that Christ should take them upon Himself and suffer them for the salvation of men, and therefore willed that the Prophets, from the mouth of God, should foretell and prophesy them.
Behold, here is fulfilled Christ's prophecy concerning this flight, given in verse 31. "They fled," because they now saw Christ as if overcome, seized, and overwhelmed by the Jews, so that no hope was left of escape or of helping Him; therefore, fearing that they themselves might be seized and harshly punished by the Jews — who were so angered and hostile to Christ their Lord — they took to flight. Yet after this flight, recovering their courage a little later, John and Peter returned, following Jesus from afar. Whence Bede, on Mark 14:49: "They were quicker," he says, "to take refuge in flight than to summon up the confidence to suffer with Christ." For, as Origen says, "The Spirit had not yet been given to them, because Jesus had not yet been glorified," John 7:39.
You will ask: was this flight of the Apostles lawful?
I answer: Some think that there was no fault, or but a small one, in this flight, since the Apostles inwardly clung to Christ in faith and mind, but outwardly fled, because they could not benefit Christ but only hinder Him. They fled, then, wisely, that they might not throw themselves into the danger either of denying Christ or of suffering harsh things; for they had not yet received the strength of the Holy Spirit. This they later received at Pentecost, and once they had received it they fearlessly exposed themselves to Jews, prisons, chains, scourgings, crosses, swords, lions, and fires. This act of flight, then, was imperfect — born of fear and falling short of the perfection of constancy — but not unlawful and wicked.
Others, however, judge it to have been unlawful, because they think that it proceeded from a distrust of Christ — that, seeing Him seized and overwhelmed by the Jews, they lost their former faith and hope in Him, despairing that they could be helped and defended by Him. Hence they fled without consulting Him; wherefore by the very act and by their flight they tacitly denied His power, and that He was the Christ. See what is said on verse 31, where I said the former view seems truer. The Apostles, then, in fleeing from Christ, sinned venially, because, struck with sudden and excessive fear (which is wont to take away both reason and memory from one terrified), out of pusillanimity and distrust, without His command or nod they fled in different directions. For having so often experienced the help of Christ in dangers, they ought to have trusted that the same help would be at hand for them now — especially since they had seen Christ, by His word alone, "I am He," cast all the henchmen prostrate, and command them: "Let these go their way." They ought therefore to have asked counsel and help of Him, and to have said: Lord, help us, and what do You wish us to do? Christ would surely have helped them and told them what they should do.
Therefore it is probable that they did not lose charity, much less faith. See what was said on verse 31. Mark, 14:49, adds that a certain young man following along, leaving his linen cloth behind to the Jews, fled away naked: who this was, and why he did this, I shall explain in Mark.
Verse 57: They, Holding Jesus, Led Him to Caiaphas the High Priest
57. BUT THEY, HOLDING (in Greek κρατήσαντες, that is, after they had seized Him and reduced Him into their power, lording over Him as though He were a guilty bound prisoner) JESUS, LED HIM TO CAIAPHAS THE HIGH PRIEST, WHERE THE SCRIBES AND ELDERS HAD GATHERED. — John, chapter 18:13, adds that Jesus was first led to Annas, who was the father-in-law of Caiaphas, but only briefly and as it were in passing. They did this either out of honor, that they might venerate the elder Annas, or because Annas more than the others desired and labored to have Christ captured. Hence Saint Cyril and Francisco Lucas think that the price of Judas's betrayal of Christ was paid in the house of Annas; or, as Saint Augustine opines, because Annas's house was as it were on the way for those going to Caiaphas, who was the high priest of that year, concerning whom more in John 18:13. For that the first examination of Christ and the slap inflicted on Him, and Peter's first denial of Christ as well as the two following ones, took place not in the house of Annas, as some opine from John's words, but of Caiaphas, is clear from Matthew, Mark, and Luke, and John himself insinuates the same in 18:19, saying: "The high priest therefore questioned Jesus." For the high priest of that year was Caiaphas, not Annas, as he himself said in verse 43; wherefore what John adds in verse 24: "And Annas sent Him bound to Caiaphas the high priest," understand by epanalepsis: "and he sent," that is, for Annas had already sent Christ to Caiaphas the high priest, who, as I said a little earlier, examined Him and questioned Him about His doctrine and disciples. For John recalls what he had omitted, lest from his preceding narrative anyone should think that Christ was examined by Annas, not by Caiaphas the high priest. Hence some transpose the words of John, verse 24, just cited, and place them earlier, immediately after verse 13, where he related that Jesus had been led to Annas they insert them, as Saint Cyril does. So Origen, Saint Augustine, On the Harmony of the Evangelists, book 3, chapter 6, Jansenius, and others everywhere.
HAD GATHERED. — He does not say: Were being called together, because they had already been called together, when Judas had requested attendants from Caiaphas to seize Christ: for then Caiaphas had convoked the Scribes and elders, so that, when Jesus had been brought by Judas, they might immediately judge and condemn Him; for they had conceived a monstrous hatred against Christ their reproacher, and therefore they thirsted for His death and panted for the hour of His killing: for which reason in the house of Caiaphas "they kept watch through the night," says Chrysostom.
Verse 58: But Peter Was Following Him at a Distance, Even to the Court of the High Priest
58. BUT PETER WAS FOLLOWING HIM AT A DISTANCE EVEN TO THE COURT OF THE HIGH PRIEST. AND HAVING ENTERED INSIDE, HE WAS SITTING WITH THE SERVANTS, THAT HE MIGHT SEE THE END. — While the other Apostles had scattered elsewhere in flight, Peter alone, gathering his courage out of flight, halted and, partly out of curiosity, partly and more out of love for Jesus his master, followed Him after He had been seized by the attendants, while He was being led by them to Annas and Caiaphas — but "at a distance," lest he be seized by the attendants, both because he was a disciple of Jesus and because he had cut off Malchus's ear. So that he fled was a matter of fear; that he turned back was a matter of love overcoming fear. Hence Saint Ambrose on Luke 22: "Peter," he says, "in this is to be revered by us with the greatest admiration, that he did not leave the Lord, even when he was afraid. Fear belongs to nature, care to piety; what he fears is foreign, what is his own is that he does not flee; what he follows belongs to devotion, what he denies belongs to deception." In Peter, therefore, fear and love were struggling: here love conquered fear; but soon in a serious temptation fear conquered love, when, fearing the servants, he denied Christ.
EVEN TO THE COURT OF THE HIGH PRIEST, — that is, of Caiaphas the pontiff. John recounts the manner and order of what took place more distinctly in 18:15, saying: "Now Simon Peter was following Jesus, and another disciple. And that disciple was known to the high priest, and he entered with Jesus into the court of the high priest. But Peter stood outside at the door. The other disciple, therefore, who was known to the high priest, went out and spoke to the doorkeeper and brought Peter in."
Saint Chrysostom, Theophylact, Euthymius, Saint Jerome in his Epitaph of Marcella to Principia, and Lyranus all hold that this disciple was Saint John the Apostle, the latter saying that John was known to the high priest because he was accustomed to sell him fish, or because someone among his kinsmen was a servant of the high priest. Nicephorus, book 1, chapter 28, gives a different reason, namely that John had sold his inheritance to the high priest. It is truer that he was not John, nor any other of the Apostles, both because the Apostles were known and familiar to Christ, but not to the high priest, for they were constantly with Christ; and because, just as Christ was, so were His disciples hated by the high priest: whence by the servants of the high priest they would not have been admitted into his house, but rather would have been seized and arrested. For which reason the Syriac translates: one of the other disciples, as if to say: One, not from the Apostles, who were public disciples of Christ, but from the other secret disciples of Christ, who heard His faith in secret and followed Him.
AND HAVING ENTERED INSIDE (not into the house where Jesus was to be examined by the high priest and the council, but into the court of the house of Caiaphas), HE WAS SITTING WITH THE SERVANTS. — "He was not approaching the place where Jesus was," says Saint Jerome, "lest some suspicion should arise among the servants, but he was sitting with them at the fire warming himself, because it was cold," as John, Luke, and Mark have it. For there was a sharp cold, such as is wont to be at night on the 25th of March. Peter sinned through imprudence and rash-[ness] [continues on next page]
[continuing: Peter sinned through imprudence and] rashness, in that he inserted himself among the servants and exposed himself to danger — either of mangling Christ's reputation along with the servants, or, if he did not do that, of undergoing chains and beatings, as the event taught. For soon, when questioned about Christ, he denied Him. Truly Ecclesiasticus 3:27 says: "He who loves danger shall perish in it." Wherefore in temptation and persecution the weak and timid ought to flee, so as to withdraw themselves from the danger of falling.
THAT HE MIGHT SEE THE END, — namely, whether Jesus would be condemned to death by the high priest and the council, or be absolved, or whether Jesus Himself would free Himself from the danger. For if He were condemned, Peter would have looked to flight for himself; but if He were absolved, he would have returned to Him dutifully as a disciple.
Verse 59: The Chief Priests and All the Council Were Seeking False Testimony Against Jesus
59. NOW THE CHIEF PRIESTS AND ALL THE COUNCIL WERE SEEKING FALSE TESTIMONY AGAINST JESUS, THAT THEY MIGHT PUT HIM TO DEATH. — There must be inserted here what John recounts in 18:19, saying: "The high priest therefore questioned Jesus about His disciples and about His doctrine. Jesus answered him: I have spoken openly to the world; I have always taught in the synagogue and in the temple, where all the Jews come together; and in secret I have said nothing. Why do you question Me? Question those who heard what I have spoken to them: behold, these know what I have said. Now when He had said these things, one of the servants standing by gave Jesus a slap, saying: Do You answer the high priest in this way? Jesus answered him: If I have spoken evil, bear witness of the evil; but if well, why do you strike Me?"
"Caiphas asked these things," says Euthymius, "wishing to charge Christ as the inventor of some new thing, and as a seditious man, as it were forming illicit assemblies and introducing new doctrines." For it belonged to the high priest to investigate concerning heretics and heresies, new sects and errors. Now Jesus, relying on His conscience and the equity of His cause, although placed in the midst of His enemies, having put away all fear of them, courageously, prudently, and confidently answered the high priest that He had taught publicly, and that there existed — indeed, were present — public hearers and witnesses of His doctrine, although they were His enemies and were conspiring for His death: from them, therefore, let him ask what He had taught. For no surer testimony of innocence and sound doctrine exists than what is sought from the hearers, especially hostile ones. For if Christ Himself had set forth His own doctrine, they would have said that out of fear of condemnation and death He was saying other things in the council than what He had taught publicly. Hence Chrysostom: "He answers not arrogantly," he says, "but in reliance on the truth. For this is the greatest argument of truth, when one brings forth enemies as testimony of the things which one says." Whence He says: "Why do you question Me?" etc., as if to say: Why, O masked high priest, do you question Me insidiously and treacherously, that you may elicit some word from My mouth on which you may slander and condemn Me? For three years now I have taught publicly in the temple: you know, or can easily know from the common opinion of the people who heard Me, what I have taught. If you do not know it, you are a vain high priest, who through three years took no care of public doctrine and public teachers. If, however, you now wish to know it, question My enemies who stand by here, who have often heard Me. Let them produce, if they can, any word said by Me less than truthfully or soundly. For I know that they cannot do this in truth.
Furthermore, as to what John says: "One of the servants standing by gave Jesus a slap," Saint Cyril thinks that this man felt himself touched by Christ's words, because, having been sent by the Scribes to hear and seize Jesus, marveling at His doctrine, and being asked why he had not taken Him, he had answered: "Never has man spoken as this Man speaks," John 7:46; he wished therefore to wipe out this mark by giving a slap to Jesus. "For He pointed," says Cyril (book 11 on John, chapter 45), "to those very men standing by, who had both admired the beauty of His doctrine, and were ministers of the Jews' impiety."
"He gave a slap to Jesus," the Syriac: he struck Him on the cheek, in order to flatter the high priest, as if he were the avenger of his honor. That this slap, struck with an armed hand as it seems, was very atrocious and equally ignominious is evident from the holy face which Christ imprinted on Veronica, which is reverently preserved at Rome in the basilica of Peter, and shown to the people in the week of Easter. Wherefore Saint Chrysostom rightly is amazed and exclaims: "What is more shameless than this? Let heaven shudder, let earth tremble at Christ's patience and the servants' shamelessness." And Saint Cyril: "I think," he says, "that the whole creation would have shuddered, if it had had a sense of this thing. For the Lord of glory was being struck by the impious hand of a man." It is a wonder that this hand did not at once dry up and waste away in fire, indeed that the earth did not split open and swallow this man alive and send him to the depths of hell. This was prevented by the gentleness and charity of Christ, awaiting and calling him together with his companions to repentance and salvation, and in fact sanctifying and saving many of them, as is evident from Acts 2:37. This is what Jeremiah, lamenting — or rather marveling — at Christ, foretold in Lamentations 3:30: "He will give the cheek to him who strikes Him, He shall be filled with reproaches."
After these things narrated by John, there are now to be subjoined what Matthew narrates here: namely, that when Jesus had referred the high priest, who was asking about His doctrine, back to His hearers, the high priest asked some of those present who had heard Jesus, whether they had heard Him teaching anything wicked or erroneous. "They sought, therefore, false testimony," because they despaired of finding true testimony, on account of the supreme wisdom, truth, and sanctity of Christ, most well-known to the whole people.
THAT THEY MIGHT DELIVER HIM UP TO DEATH. — For this was their aim and end, for which they were seeking false witnesses as a kind of necessary means, since the purpose and form of a tribunal and a trial is to condemn no one, unless he has been convicted of a crime by true witnesses;
[They were going] to punish false witnesses with the penalty of retaliation. For they wished to safeguard their own reputation, that they might not appear robbers, but fair judges of Christ: wherefore they bring a judicial suit against Him, but in such a way that the judges themselves are His accusators, and as it were sworn enemies for His death, which is contrary to every form and equity of judgment. So Chrysostom: "They cloak their snares," he says, "with the appearance and form of a trial," namely, as Victor Antiochenus says on Mark 14, "masking their snares with the framework of a tribunal." Again, they wished Him to be condemned to death by Pilate, the Roman governor. But they knew that Pilate, by Roman custom, would not do this unless some crime worthy of death were charged against Christ and proven by witnesses. Therefore the chief priests seek false witnesses against Jesus, that they may deliver the author of life and savior of the world to death — namely because, while they themselves did not know it and unwillingly, God had decreed through the death of Christ to give us present and eternal life.
Verse 60: And They Did Not Find Any, Although Many False Witnesses Had Come Forward
60. AND THEY DID NOT FIND ANY, ALTHOUGH MANY FALSE WITNESSES HAD COME FORWARD. AND AT LAST THERE CAME TWO FALSE WITNESSES. — "They found," says Origen, "no semblance of fault in Him, although they were evil and many, cunning and industrious, etc., so pure was the life of Jesus, and beyond every reproach;" for whatever these witnesses brought forward was either false, or mutually contradictory, or irrelevant, so that on account of these things Christ could not be made guilty of death. "Two false witnesses": why they are called false, I shall explain in the following verse.
Verse 61: I Am Able to Destroy the Temple of God, and After Three Days to Rebuild It
61. AND THEY SAID: THIS MAN SAID: I AM ABLE TO DESTROY THE TEMPLE OF GOD, AND AFTER THREE DAYS TO REBUILD IT. — Christ had said this in John 2:19, but in this manner and with these words: the Jews were asking Him: "What sign do You show us, since You do these things?" as if to say: What sign do You give of Your power, and that You have been sent by God? Jesus answered them, and gave them this sign: "Destroy this temple, and in three days I will raise it up." Yet these are called "false witnesses," because, although they spoke the truth in part, by quoting Christ's own statement, nevertheless in part they spoke falsely, because they corrupted both the words and the sense of Christ. The words first, because Christ had not said: "I am able to destroy," but: "Destroy," that is, if you destroy — you, that is, not I. Secondly, because Mark says they added "made with hands," by saying: "I will destroy this temple made with hands, and in three days I will build another not made with hands." This was false, because John has no such thing. Thirdly, because Christ had not said: "After three days I will rebuild," but: "I will raise it up," that is, I will resurrect it from the dead.
They equally corrupted the sense, because Christ was speaking not of Solomon's temple, but of His own body, in which, as in a temple, the fullness of divinity dwelt, Colossians 2:9. Hence John adds: "But He was speaking of the temple of His body." For when the Jews there asked for a sign, Christ gave them the sign of the resurrection, as if to say: When you destroy the temple of My body, I, on the third day, will raise it from death; and from this sign you will know that I am a heavenly and divine Man, sent from heaven by God. So Origen, Saint Jerome, Chrysostom, and others. Christ could have said clearly: I shall rise from the dead, but He did not wish to; and He wished to use the riddle of the temple, both because among cavillers, such as the Jews were, one ought to speak not openly but covertly and symbolically, and that by this obscure saying He might give occasion for His passion; for He knew that the Jews would accuse Him on account of this riddle ill-understood, and bring Him to be guilty of death. Hence Mark adds: "And their testimony was not consistent;" or, as the Greek has more clearly: Neither thus was their testimony consistent, both for the reasons already given, and because these words of Christ, even if at first sight they might seem to be empty boasting (because He would call Himself so powerful as to be able to destroy and rebuild the temple in three days), yet were harmful and injurious to no one, so that for them Christ could be made guilty of death.
Verse 62: Do You Answer Nothing? But Jesus Was Silent
62. AND THE HIGH PRIEST RISING UP, SAID TO HIM: DO YOU ANSWER NOTHING TO THE THINGS WHICH THESE TESTIFY AGAINST YOU? BUT JESUS WAS SILENT. — "Rising," out of indignation that Jesus was silent and was as it were despising this accusation as futile, and refuting it by silence. Again, "rising," that he might display the unworthiness and gravity of the charge brought against Christ, as if Christ by this statement of His had belittled and violated the magnificence, religion, and sanctity of the temple.
BUT JESUS WAS SILENT. — Why? The first cause was that, as I said, the accusation contained no crime worthy of death, but only an empty boast, wherefore it did not need refutation.
Secondly: "He was silent," because "He knew," says Saint Jerome, "that whatever He might have answered would be twisted into slander." For, as Saint Chrysostom says, "There was there only the figure of a judgment, but in fact the assault of robbers."
Thirdly: "He was silent," because He was wholly composing Himself for the condemnation and death decreed for Him by the Father: wherefore He did not wish to escape death by excusing Himself, but to be condemned and crushed by remaining silent.
Fourthly: The Author of the Commentary on Mark, chapter 14, in Saint Jerome: "The silence of Christ," he says, "discharges the apology of Adam," as if to say: Christ was silent so that by His silence He might make satisfaction for the foolish speech of Adam, by which he excused his own sin, of which he was being charged by God, saying: "The woman whom You gave me as a companion gave me of the tree, and I ate;" and of the woman excusing herself and saying: "The serpent deceived me," Genesis 3:12.
Verse 63: I Adjure You by the Living God, That You Tell Us If You Are the Christ
63. AND THE HIGH PRIEST SAID TO HIM: I ADJURE YOU BY THE LIVING GOD, THAT YOU TELL US IF YOU ARE THE CHRIST, THE SON OF GOD. — Seeing that he was not being answered by Jesus, and being indignant on that account, the high priest adjures Him by God, so that by the adjuration and the reverence of the divine name he might compel Him to answer.
"I adjure," as if to say: I, the high priest in the lands of God, am the vicar of Christ; wherefore by the authority of God committed to me, with God called as witness, I command and conjure you to answer me whether You are the Christ such as You have said and taught Yourself to be. See what was said on chapter 5, verse 7. Here Caiaphas touches the point of the dispute and of the whole cause. For Jesus was saying that He was the Messiah, that is, the Christ sent by God for the salvation of mankind with supreme power; but the high priest and the elders, often censured by Christ, persistently denied this. Therefore Caiaphas asks this not in order to learn it, but in order to condemn Him. For if Jesus were to say that He was the Christ, he would convict Him as a blasphemer guilty of death; but if He were to say that He was not the Christ, he would have rejoined: Why then did You sell Yourself to the people as Christ the Son of God? And thus he would have condemned Him as a false prophet, because He had made Himself equal to God, as the Jews objected against Him in John 5:19. For the whole cause of the hatred and envy of the high priests and Scribes against Christ was that He, a vile and plebeian man, as He seemed, was saying that He was Christ and the Son of God, and therefore preached without their permission, and despised their frivolous traditions, and publicly and sharply castigated their grave vices and crimes.
Verse 64: You Have Said It: Hereafter You Shall See the Son of Man Sitting at the Right Hand
64. JESUS SAYS TO HIM: YOU HAVE SAID IT. — That is, "I am," as Mark 14:62 has it. Christ, adjured by the high priest, although he was perverse and treacherous, contriving slander and death for Him, nonetheless answered candidly and clearly that He was the Christ: first, in order to render reverence to the divine name by which He was being adjured, and at the same time to render to the pontifical dignity, by which He was being adjured, the honor and obedience otherwise due; secondly, in order that by this reply He might "take away every excuse from them," as Chrysostom says, namely that they should not be able to excuse themselves before men, and before God on the day of judgment, why they had not believed in Jesus, but rather had killed Him, and might say to Him: We questioned Jesus, whether He were the Christ, judicially in the council, but He kept silent or answered ambiguously, wherefore we were not bound to receive Him as Christ and to believe in Him.
NEVERTHELESS I SAY TO YOU: HEREAFTER YOU SHALL SEE THE SON OF MAN SITTING AT THE RIGHT HAND OF THE POWER OF GOD, AND COMING IN THE CLOUDS OF HEAVEN. — "Hereafter," that is, from this time forth, after My death, namely on the day of judgment; for they were not going to see Christ otherwise. "Sitting at the right hand of power" — in Greek δυνάμεως, that is, of God's power, as if to say: You shall see Me, who appear to you to be only the Son of Man, also to be truly the proper and natural Son of God, when on the day of judgment you shall see Me seated at the right hand of God the Father almighty, that is, to be of equal dignity, majesty, and glory with Him. He alludes to Psalm 109:1, as if to say: I am He of whom David sang beforehand: "The Lord said to my Lord: Sit at My right hand." Furthermore, Christ sits at the right hand of God not only as God, but also as Man, in the manner I have explained on Colossians 3:1.
Note: properly and directly the high priests and the Jews shall not see this on the day of judgment, since they are to be reprobated, and so are not to be made blessed by the vision of God, but to be damned by the sight of the devil; yet indirectly and as it were in effect they shall see this very thing. For they are going to see such majesty of Christ as Judge, His glory, splendor, and the pageant of all the angels surrounding Him, that they shall not doubt that He is nearest to God — indeed, God and the Son of God, as He Himself here asserts and predicts: because they shall then experience His power and omnipotence in the glorification of the godly and the condemnation of the impious, who here despised Him as cast off, weak, and powerless.
AND COMING IN THE CLOUDS OF HEAVEN. — He alludes to Daniel 7:13: "Behold, with the clouds of heaven there was coming as it were a Son of Man," so that from this the high priest may know that Jesus is that very one whom Daniel marked out and foretold to be coming as judge of all.
Here behold and marvel at the magnanimity of Jesus, who, in the midst of His judges, the high priests, and His enemies, with Himself about to be condemned to death, nonetheless threatens them with His return to judgment, as if to say: You, O Caiaphas, and you, O chief priests, unjustly now judge and condemn Me, as if a false prophet and a false Christ; but that day shall come on which I, who now stand a defendant before your tribunal, shall sit as Judge. Then the situation reversed, you shall stand as the accused before My tribunal; then you shall see that I have truly been and am the Christ. You now condemn Me to death on the cross; but I shall then in this very place (for Christ as judge shall sit above the valley of Jehoshaphat, which lies next to Jerusalem, Joel 3:2) condemn you to the gehenna of flaming and tormenting fire forever, because you have committed against Me this monstrous sacrilege, because you have been Christ-killers and God-killers; and in very fact it shall come to pass thus.
Verse 65: Then the High Priest Rent His Garments, Saying: He Has Blasphemed
65. THEN THE HIGH PRIEST RENT HIS GARMENTS, SAYING: HE HAS BLASPHEMED. WHY DO WE NEED ANY MORE WITNESSES? BEHOLD, NOW YOU HAVE HEARD THE BLASPHEMY. — "He rent," that is, "He unfastened," says Cajetan on Mark 14, or rather he loosened the clasps and opened the garment. But this seems insipid; for in Greek it is διέρρηξε, that is, he tore in pieces, he ripped apart, he lacerated, because the garments of the Jews were open under the chin, so that they could easily be thrown over the head onto the shoulders, and thus put on and off: when therefore they wished to rend them — that is, to tear them apart — they grasped both edges of the slit under the chin with their hands, and with great force tore the rest of the garment down to the girdle, as a sign of grief and indignation. They did not, however, tear it below, lest they should expose their private parts; for they did not wear undergarments. This was a custom in use among the Gentiles, as is plain from Homer and Virgil, but most of all among the Jews, that in mourning or upon hearing a blasphemy — out of zeal for the honor of God — they would rend, that is, tear, their garment; as Hezekiah did when he heard the blasphemy of Sennacherib, 2 Kings 19:1. Furthermore, Caiaphas here rent his garment unlawfully, because
[continuing: he himself was the high priest.] Now this was forbidden to a high priest, according to that of Leviticus 21:10: "He shall not uncover his head, nor rend his garments." I have given the reasons in that place. Caiaphas therefore rent his garment in order to stir up odium against Jesus, and to expose Him to all as a blasphemer to be execrated and condemned. But symbolically the rending itself signified that the old law and its priesthood were now being torn apart by the death of Christ, and that he himself was being deprived of the high-priesthood by Him. So Saint Leo, sermon 6 On the Passion: "He did this," he says, "to magnify the odium of the speech he had heard; but, not knowing what this insanity signified, he deprived himself of his priestly honor, having forgotten that precept: He shall not lay aside the mitre from his head, nor rend his garments." And Origen: "He rent his garments," he says, "showing his own foulness and the nakedness of his soul, and manifesting the mystery, that the old priesthood, and the school of his priesthood and worship, which was according to the letter, was to be torn apart." And Jerome: "He rent his garments to show that the Jews had lost the glory of the priesthood and that the high priests had a vacant seat." So also Chrysostom, Theophylact, Euthymius, Jansenius, Barradius, and the rest.
HE HAS BLASPHEMED, — by saying that He is the Messiah and the Son of God. The high priest, lest anyone be moved by Christ's words and put faith in them, forestalls this and fastens on Him the charge of blasphemy, which the Jews wonderfully shuddered at, so that no one would dare to speak for Christ or to defend Him, but he would compel everyone to condemn Him as a blasphemer.
WHY DO WE NEED ANY MORE WITNESSES? — The Syriac: Why do we further seek witnesses for ourselves? Behold, here the impious Caiaphas betrays his impiety, in that he does not act as a judge, but as a plaintiff and accuser of Christ. For it is the part of a plaintiff to seek witnesses against the one whom he accuses. So Saint Chrysostom.
Verse 66: What Think You? He Is Guilty of Death
66. WHAT THINK YOU? — Behold, here again the iniquitous high priest, contrary to the order of law, plays the part not of a judge but of a plaintiff, and makes Christ's very enemies and accusers into His judges, and as it were forces and compels them, by his pontifical authority and the sentence already prejudged by himself, to condemn Christ as a blasphemer. Hence Chrysostom: "They themselves," he says, "accuse, they themselves examine, they themselves pronounce sentence."
BUT THEY ANSWERING SAID: HE IS GUILTY OF DEATH. — A blasphemer by the law, Leviticus 24:16, ought to be stoned, just as they stoned Stephen as a blasphemer: but these men cry out that Christ is guilty not of stoning, but of death, because they had already determined among themselves not to stone Him, but to drive Him to the cross. Origen pathetically displays the unworthiness of this most iniquitous sentence: "How great an error," he says, "do you think it was to pronounce Life Itself, the chief Life, guilty of death, and not to look upon the Source of life — testified to by so many who rose again — from whom life flowed forth into all the living! For as the Father has life in Himself, so also has He given to the Son to have life in Himself." What is more shameful than that the Son of God, who is the fount of all life of angels, men, and animals, because, when questioned and adjured by the high priest, He had confessed the truth — namely that He is Christ the Son of God — was condemned as guilty of death by the whole council of priests? He had restored sight to many blind, hearing to the deaf, life to the dead, and therefore He is adjudged to death by the priests, His rivals and enviers. Nevertheless they speak unknowingly, but in another respect, because, although Christ in Himself was most innocent and most holy, He had taken upon Himself our sins to be expiated. Hence on this account He was guilty of death: for Christ took upon Himself that sentence pronounced by God against Adam and his descendants: "In whatever day you shall eat of it, you shall die the death," Genesis 2:17. For He Himself wished to atone for our death, and by His own death to call us back to the life of grace and of everlasting glory. Wherefore He Himself, with the highest modesty, equity, and patience, accepted this most unworthy sentence, and offered Himself to God the Father as if guilty of death, as a victim for our sins, as Isaiah teaches in chapter 53 — that He might teach us to bear with an even mind the iniquitous judgments of men, reproaches, slanders, censures, etc., and that by His own example and out of love for Him, namely that we may render to Him in turn what we can, when for His service we are made guilty of death, exile, prison, infamy, etc., and are dragged away, just as He for us was judged and proclaimed by the whole council guilty of death.
Tropologically: A Christian who sins again makes Christ his Redeemer, as it were, guilty of death — indeed, as it were kills Him and crucifies Him — according to that of Hebrews 6:6: "Crucifying again to themselves the Son of God and making Him a mockery." See what was said there. Hence Saint Bridget, in book 1 of the Revelations, chapter 37, recounts that the Blessed Virgin said to her: "I lament that My Son is more bitterly crucified by His enemies who are now in the world, than the Jews then crucified Him." She adds the reason: "Because their vices, by which they spiritually crucify My Son, are more abominable and grievous to Him than those of the men who crucified Him in the body."
It is asked here, when this council, examination, and condemnation of Christ took place? Some think it took place after Peter's denial, when the night was over, on the morning of the following day. For this is what Luke seems to say in 22:66. For that this examination of Matthew is the same as that of Luke is evident, if one compares the two. Wherefore they hold that there is here in Matthew a hysterology, namely that everything from verse 59 down to here has been said by anticipation, and is to be placed in the next chapter, verse 1. So Saint Augustine, On the Harmony of the Evangelists, book 3, chapter 7, Maldonatus, and some others.
Others, with Jansenius, hold a better view: that all these things are placed by Matthew in proper order, and that they took place immediately after the captivity of Christ, a little after midnight, as soon as Christ was led captive to Caiaphas. For there was a twofold council
[twofold council] of the chief priests against Christ; and twice in council Christ was questioned and examined whether He Himself were the Christ; namely first, at night, of which here; secondly, the next morning, of which Luke 22:66. For at night, after the examination and confession of Christ, the mocking and slapping of Christ took place, about which the next verse, as is plain from the other Evangelists. But because at night not all the senators were present, hence in the morning Caiaphas again convoked a general council, to which he summoned all, that by it Christ might be condemned. Whence in it Christ, as a stubborn blasphemer and guilty of majesty both divine, because He had said He was the Son of God, and human, because He had asserted He was Christ the King, was condemned by the voice of all, and handed over to Pilate the governor, that he might in fact condemn Him and drive Him to the cross, about which in the next chapter, verse 1, and Luke 22:66. In the morning, therefore, there was the great council, as Mark says — that is, the supreme one, which was called the "Sanhedrin."
Verse 67: Then They Spat in His Face, and Buffeted Him
67. THEN THEY SPAT IN HIS FACE, AND BUFFETED HIM, AND OTHERS STRUCK HIS FACE WITH THE PALMS OF THEIR HANDS, SAYING: PROPHESY UNTO US, O CHRIST, WHO IS HE THAT STRUCK YOU? — Great and savage was the barbarity of the servants, who, when Christ was now condemned to death as a defendant, did not pity Him but insulted Him — while equally the high priest and the senators allowed it, indeed some of them even spat upon Him and struck Him, as Mark hints. They thought they were doing this rightly out of zeal, as it were avengers of their law and of the honor of God, because Christ, as a blasphemer against God and an enemy of God, had now been condemned to death by the council.
THEN THEY SPAT. — In Greek ἐνέπτυσαν, that is, they spat upon Him; their spittle and phlegm from the previous day's intemperance — foul, virulent, putrid, horrid — they hurled, both "those who were holding Him," as Luke says, and the other servants and bystanders, and even some from the council, as Mark insinuates.
INTO HIS FACE — divine, and to be revered and adored by every creature, into which the angels desire to look. This was an atrocious ignominy and outrage of buffoons and the basest of men against Christ the Son of God, who here displayed an astonishing gentleness, humility, and patience, fulfilling that which had been foretold of Him by Isaiah 50:6: "I have given My body to those who struck Me, and My cheeks to those who plucked them: I have not turned away My face from those who reproached and spat upon Me." Where Forerius translates from the Hebrew: "I have given My back to the strikers, and My cheeks to those who pluck out the hair: I have not turned away My face from reproaches and from spittle." Forerius adds: "The plucking of the beard has pain and signal disgrace, just as does spitting in the face: for the hairs of the beard are pressed deeply into the flesh." Hence Clement of Alexandria, Pædagogus, book 3, chapter 3: "It is unlawful," he says, "to pluck the beard, which is an inborn beauty, a noble and ingenuous beauty." Saint Jerome, in his Commentary on Isaiah 50, translates: "I have given My cheek to slaps, and I have not turned away My face from the confusion of spittle." See what was said there.
Hence Euthymius exclaims: "Shudder, O heaven and earth, and the whole creation — into what a face, what an injury they have inflicted!" And Saint Chrysostom, and following him Titus Bostrensis, on Luke 22: "On that face," he says, "which the waves of the sea revered, which the sun on the cross seeing hid its rays, they were spitting, striking, abundantly satisfying their spirits and inflicting most outrageous wounds, buffeting Him with the fist and giving Him slaps in the face, etc. But why did they do this, when they were going to kill Him? What need was there of such mockery? Their cruel ways are shown in all things, who, like hunters who have at last, after much chasing, found their wild beast, vent their rage upon it, esteeming this for themselves a great pleasure and festivity, and showing how prone their dispositions were to slaughter."
Furthermore Saint Anselm, in On the Passion of the Lord, a little before the middle, introduces the Blessed Virgin speaking thus: "And after a little time had elapsed, My Son appeared so spat upon that He looked as if He were a leper." And further on, speaking of the scourging, he says: "My Son was so transformed in stupor and deformity, that He appeared to all as if struck with leprosy."
AND THEY BUFFETED HIM. — In Greek, they cuffed Him. A buffet (colaphus) is a blow which is inflicted with the fist or closed hand on the neck, head, or back; a slap (alapa) is what is dealt with the open hand on the cheek: whence the slap brings more shame, blushing, and embarrassment; the buffet, more affliction, swelling, and pain, according to that saying of the Comic Poet: "From buffets the whole head is one bruise."
AND OTHERS STRUCK HIS FACE WITH THE PALMS. — Thus also Theophylact, Vatablus, and others, and even Erasmus and other moderns, have rendered the Greek ἐῤῥάπισαν. Others translate: they beat Him with sandals or rods; for ῥάπις signifies both a rod and a sandal. But here by catachresis it denotes a slap, for this is properly given on the face: for Luke renders: "And they struck His face." Therefore Christ here is accused as impious, struck on the face as shameless, speaks as Lord, keeps silent as innocent, is condemned as sacrilegious; the divine face — the very purity of paradise — is spat upon; He is torn by fists, "He who has measured the waters in His fist, and weighed the heavens in His palm," Isaiah 40. By slaps His countenance is dishonored — He who is "the splendor of the Father's glory," Hebrews 1. His eyes are veiled — He who reveals the counsels of souls and looks into all thoughts; He is mocked, plucked in His hair, struck, bitten by jeers.
Verse 68: Prophesy Unto Us, O Christ, Who Is He That Struck You?
68. SAYING: PROPHESY UNTO US, O CHRIST, WHO IS HE THAT STRUCK YOU? — They mock Christ and petulantly insult Him, because He had said He was a Prophet, as though a false prophet, indeed as if a player and a buffoon, as if to say: If You are a Prophet, prophesy to us which of us first, which second, which third, and so in order, in turn struck You [continued on next page]
...struck Him, who gave the buffet, who the spitting? For they evidently seem to have asked these things after they veiled the face of Christ, and struck Him while veiled (as Luke records; for even before they veiled Him they had struck Christ; but here they veil Him in order to mock Christ and say: "Prophesy") in derision, saying and asking: "Prophesy to us, Christ, who is he that struck You?" That is to say: If You are the Christ, You cannot be ignorant of hidden things. Tell us, then, who is he that struck You? Behold how, like buffoons, they mock the Son of God as though He were some masked soothsayer.
Theophylact gravely says: "The Lord of the Prophets is mocked as a false prophet." The Jews, therefore, in His Passion veiled the face of Christ for derision: first, that they might laugh at Him because He had called Himself a Prophet — whence, while striking Him, they asked Him: "Prophesy," that is, divine who struck You; secondly, that they might more freely beat and harass Him, lest they should be terrified and restrained by His divine countenance and eyes, says Jansenius. For the majesty of Christ shone forth in His face, says St. Jerome.
Mystically: by being veiled, Christ signified that He would hide His face from the Jews, and that they would be deprived of the faith and knowledge of God and would be blinded. Whence, to signify the same thing, Moses, who was a type of Christ, when descending from the mountain veiled his eyes, as Paul explains in 2 Corinthians 3. To this pertains that saying of Moses: "I will hide My face from them," Deuteronomy 32.
Tropologically: He signified that He was paying for the sin of Adam. For Adam and Eve first sinned with their eyes and mouth, by looking upon and eating the forbidden fruit; therefore, in order to expiate this, Christ suffered His mouth and eyes to be veiled. For, as St. Augustine says, Christ suffered in all those members with which man sinned and still sins, that He might expiate all things.
The cause of these mockings was: First, that Christ by these injuries might make satisfaction for the infinite sins by which men, so far as in them lies, inflict the greatest injury and indignity upon God. For the sinner, so far as in him lies, spits upon God, strikes Him with buffets and slaps, because he despises Him and prefers to Him the creature which he loves; and so he strips God of His honor and, as it were, of His divinity, and fashions and sets up another god for himself: namely, the covetous man chooses Mammon, the luxurious man Venus, the drunkard Bacchus, and so forth. Thus Origen: "That He might rescue us, who were worthy to suffer all these infamies, He Himself suffered them on our behalf;" and as the Author of the Commentary on Mark cited by St. Jerome says: "His reproaches took away our reproach," indeed they obtained for us eternal honor. And St. Athanasius: "It was not Christ, but we in Christ, who suffered." Therefore Christ willed to suffer such great and terrible things, in order that He might more honor God and more amply satisfy for the offense and injury done to Him; just as one who has slain a king is racked with extraordinary torments, that the king's honor and the offense against the commonwealth may be satisfied. And so Christ longed to suffer greater things, and that for many years. For this reason His Passion honored God more than the fault of Adam had offended God and wounded His honor. Add this: wicked men mock God, and devise new modes of sinning and of mocking Him; therefore Christ willed to be mocked, and to atone for and expiate the inventions of crimes by inventions of mockings.
Second, that He might express the very summit of patience and virtue. Whence Victor of Antioch, on Mark 14: "He keeps His patience constantly, presenting Himself to us through all these things as the form of supreme endurance and patience." For Christ willed in His Passion and Cross to depict, as it were, the very idea of the most perfect patience and of every virtue. If, therefore, anyone desires a specimen of supreme humility, meekness, obedience, patience, constancy, charity, and so forth, let him gaze upon Christ suffering and crucified, and as far as he can, let him imitate Him and express Him in his own conduct, according to that word: "Look, and make it according to the pattern that was shown to you on the mountain" (Sinai, and mystically Calvary), Exodus 25:40. Excellently does St. Bernard say in his sermon for the Friday of the week of Passion: "Wonderful is Your Passion, Lord Jesus, which has driven away the sufferings of us all: it is propitious to all our iniquities, and is never found ineffectual in answer to any of our petitions. For what indeed is so close to death that is not saved by Your death? In this Passion, therefore, brethren, three things are especially fitting to behold: the work, the manner, the cause. For in the work patience is commended, in the manner humility, in the cause charity."
That Christ would be afflicted with such reproaches by the Jews was foretold by the Delphic Sibyl, whose verses are found in Book 1 of the Sibylline Oracles, where she sings as follows:
Then the impious one Will strike Him with buffets, and the criminal Lips of Israel will heap poisonous spittle upon Him, And will set before Him bitter gall as food and the drink of harsh vinegar.
And in Book 8:
They will batter the Divine One with the slaps of their palms (oh, what crimes!). His hunger shall be mocked with gall, His thirst with vinegar. The veil of the temple shall be torn, and a wondrous dark night Shall press upon midday for three hours.
And the Erythraean Sibyl, cited by Lactantius, Book 4, ch. 18: "He will give His innocent back to be scourged." And further on: "And receiving buffets, He will keep silence..."
"—lest anyone recognize what the word is and whence it comes, so as to speak as if to the dead." And again: "He will come into the wicked hands of unbelievers, and they will give slaps to God with unclean hands, and from filthy mouths they will spit poisonous spittle upon Him."
Third, that He might encourage the Martyrs to bear all the reproaches, beatings, and tortures of tyrants, and the faithful to endure all manner of contempt and every injury inflicted upon them by anyone whatsoever. Whence Euthymius says: "He bore all things with great courage, teaching us to endure injuries;" so that, as adamants drawn from Christ the Adamant, we may draw an adamantine constancy and patience in all things, according to that word of Isaiah 50:7: "I have set My face like the hardest stone, and I know that I shall not be confounded: He who justifies Me is near; who shall contradict Me?" The more the diamond is struck with the hammer, the harder it is and the more it resists, so that not only is it not broken by the hammers, but by resisting it itself breaks the hammers. So too the more we are afflicted, let us show the greater strength of soul, that by our patience we may conquer and break the hatred and impatience of our adversaries. This is what God says in Ezekiel 3:9: "As an adamant and as flint have I made your face: do not fear them, and do not be dismayed at their countenance." Again, an adamant breaks an adamant; so the patient, as it were as adamants, break the obstinate malice of the wicked, of whom Zechariah 7:12 says: "They have made their heart as adamant, lest they should hear the Law." "For nothing is so hard," says St. Bernard, "that it is not overcome by something harder." Furthermore, St. Athanasius, in his sermon On the Cross: "Just as if someone wished to strike a rock with his hand, he does not split the stone but wounds his hand; so also those who plotted against the Lord, daring as it were against that which was incorruptible, were themselves corrupted; and as though plotting against the Immortal, they themselves rather were put to death."
Wisely and piously St. Bernard in Sermon 43 on the Canticle, on those words of chapter 1: "A bundle of myrrh is my Beloved unto me," weaves and composes this little bundle out of the spittings, buffets, insults, and reproaches of those insolent servants, and adds: "This saving little bundle has been preserved for me. No one will take it from me; it shall abide between my breasts. To meditate on these things I have called wisdom; in these I have set the perfection of righteousness for myself, in these the fulness of knowledge, in these the riches of salvation, in these an abundance of merits. From these come to me sometimes a saving draft of bitterness, from these again the sweet anointing of consolation. These lift me up in adversity and restrain me in prosperity, and amid the joys and sorrows of this present life they offer safe guidance on either hand to one walking the royal road, by warding off the evils that threaten on this side and that."
Whence the Jews, for these reproaches inflicted upon Christ, were rejected by God and exposed to everyone's reproach. "For this reason," says Origen, "they received an eternal slap, and from then on were deprived of every prophet; but Jesus, because He humbled Himself, becoming obedient even unto blows, even unto the shame of being spat upon and scourged, and unto death, God exalted, and gave Him a Name which is above every name."
Note: after Caiaphas with the council had by night proclaimed Christ guilty of death, they insulted Him as one blasphemous and condemned throughout the rest of the night — so testifies St. Augustine, On the Harmony of the Gospels, Book 3, ch. 6 — namely for three hours, the servants of the High Priest and the leaders, and some of the leaders themselves, while the others, the council having broken up, gave themselves to rest and sleep, intending to return to the council in the morning to carry through the case and the death of Christ. Therefore Christ throughout the rest of the night was afflicted with various and grievous injuries and pains, out of the Jews' hatred and the servants' insolence; namely, first, with slaps and buffets; secondly, with spittle hawked into His angelic face; thirdly, with insults, both other ones, and that one with which they mocked Him while His face was veiled: "Prophesy to us, Christ." Whence Luke adds: "And uttering many other blasphemies they spoke against Him." Fourthly, in that they plucked out His [hair from His] cheeks—
Verse 69: Peter Was Sitting Outside in the Courtyard
69. BUT PETER WAS SITTING OUTSIDE IN THE COURTYARD; AND ONE MAID-SERVANT CAME TO HIM, SAYING: YOU TOO WERE WITH JESUS THE GALILEAN. — Having woven the story of the examination, condemnation, and mockery of Christ in the house of Caiaphas, Matthew now returns to Peter, whom in v. 58 he had related to have followed Christ as far as the courtyard. Therefore, in like fashion, he here weaves together at one stroke the threefold denial of Christ by Peter, even though these denials happened at distinct times separated by intervals.
Sat — warming himself at the fire with the servants. You will say: John says that Peter stood. I answer: Among the Hebrews "to stand" often means to be present, or to be at hand, not a fixed posture of standing, as is clear from John 1:26. Moreover, Peter at one moment was standing, at another was sitting, as servants are wont to do in the halls of princes and beside the fire.
Outside in the courtyard. — You will say: If Peter was outside, how then did the evangelist say in v. 58 that he had entered into the house in the courtyard? I answer: He was outside not with respect to the door of Caiaphas' house, but with respect to the inner hall, in which Christ was being examined by the council. He was therefore inside the house, because he was in the outer courtyard; yet he was outside with respect to the inner hall, in which the council was being held. Whence St. Ambrose, on Luke 22: "And where did Peter deny Jesus? In the praetorium of the Jews, in the company of the impious." And Bede, on Mark 14: "How harmful are the conversations of the impious! Peter himself, among the high priests' servants, denied even knowing as a man the One whom among His fellow disciples he had confessed to be the Son of God."
MAID. — In Greek paidiskē, that is, a little maid, namely, of low and lowest rank, perhaps the door-keeper, as John has it, who opened the door of the house to those knocking and closed it after those going out. From this the weakness and fear of Peter is the more evident, who, struck and overthrown — as Chrysostom says — by the questioning of a worthless little maid, denied Christ, though afterwards [having received...]
[but afterwards, having received] the Holy Spirit, he feared neither Caiaphas nor the whole council, saying: "We ought to obey God rather than men," Acts 5. From this learn how frail is the man who presumes upon himself, and on that account is abandoned by God; and conversely, how strong the very same man is when he distrusts himself and trusts in God. "Peter without the Spirit yielded to the voice of a maid; with the Spirit he yields neither to princes nor to kings," says the Author of the Commentary on Mark cited by Jerome.
You will ask: how did this maid, before the men and the servants who had seen Peter in the garden with Christ, recognize that he was a disciple of Jesus? I answer, because she was the door-keeper, and so observed carefully who and of what sort the persons entering and leaving were. She therefore observed Peter and saw that he was not one of the servants, but a stranger, fearful, with a sad and dismayed countenance: hence she conjectured that he was a follower of Jesus who, having followed Jesus, was watching to see what the council would do with Him. For this is what shrewd door-keepers customarily smell out at once, because it is difficult to hide one's mind and not betray it by the face. Perhaps too she had at other times seen Peter walking with Jesus and the Apostles through the city, or standing by Jesus in the temple, and had carefully noted His physiognomy, stature, and dress.
Galilean. — Because Jesus was a Nazarene, and Nazareth was in Galilee. She calls Him a Galilean, both as a base and despised man in the eyes of the Jews, who thought that no prophets came out of Galilee but only out of Judea — whence they say in John 7:52: "Out of Galilee no prophet arises;" and also as an innovator and seditious person, as one who was a follower of Judas the Galilean, who, having stirred up the Jews to refuse the Roman census, was killed together with his followers, Acts 5:37.
Verse 70: He Denied It Before Everyone: I Do Not Know What You Are Saying
70. BUT HE DENIED IT BEFORE EVERYONE, SAYING: I DO NOT KNOW WHAT YOU ARE SAYING. — Peter, seeing that the maid in the presence of all was betraying him not so much by questioning as by asserting that he was of Jesus' company, and fearing lest he be seized, denies it firmly before everyone, and to give credibility to his denial says that her question is so new and strange to him that he does not know what she is saying or asking. As if to say: I am so far from knowing who Jesus is, that I do not know what you are saying about Him or asking; for I do not know who or what sort of man He is, whether He has any disciples, or who and of what kind they are.
This was a lie, and in a matter of faith, just as if someone now, when asked by pagans whether he is a Christian, were to deny that he is — which is a sin against the profession of faith, concerning which Peter had heard Christ admonishing and threatening: "Whoever shall deny Me before men, I also will deny him before My Father who is in heaven," Matthew 10:33. But Peter, as Victor of Antioch says on Mark 14, "blinded by that sudden dismay and disturbance of mind, had wholly forgotten that warning of the Lord." Whence St. Augustine, pitying his fall, on John 18, exclaims: "Behold, the firmest column trembled at the breath of a single breeze; where is that boldness of him who promised so much and presumed so much of himself? Where are those words, when he said: Even if I must die with You, I will not deny You? But what wonder, if God foretold the truth, while man falsely presumed?"
Denied. — You will ask, how many times did Peter deny Christ? Dionysius the Carthusian answers, six times: namely three times in the house of Annas, as John intimates; and three times in the house of Caiaphas, as Matthew, Mark, and Luke expressly have it. The same seems to be gathered from St. Augustine, On the Harmony of the Gospels, Book 3, ch. 6. Cajetan, on John 18, adds that Peter denied Christ seven times: namely, being questioned three times by women and four times by men.
But the common opinion of St. Cyril (on John 18), of St. Ambrose (on Luke 22), of St. Jerome, of Euthymius, and of others is that Peter denied Christ only three times, and this Christ expressly foretold in v. 34: "Three times," He says, "you will deny Me." The same is plain here from the narrative of Matthew, who briefly but in the best order rehearses the story of Christ and the denial of Peter in what follows. As to the argument I have already replied at v. 57, where I showed that all these things took place in the house, not of Annas, but of Caiaphas.
Furthermore, the Evangelists narrate this threefold denial of Peter in different ways. Therefore, in order to harmonize them with one another, observe that Peter first denied Jesus simply in the courtyard, when he was questioned by the first maid, as Matthew here says; secondly, that he denied Him with an oath, when he was questioned by the second maid, as Matthew narrates in the following verse; and thirdly at last, when he was more strongly pressed, that he denied Him with execration, devoting himself to curses, as Matthew records in v. 74.
Note: St. Hilary here, and St. Ambrose on Luke 22, seem to say that Peter in this denial of Christ was not lying, but speaking ambiguously: for he was not lying, they say, who denied that he knew as a man the One whom he knew as God; as if to say: "I was not with the One whom you call a man, but I have not departed from the Son of God," says St. Ambrose; "I do not know what you are saying — that is, I do not know your sacrileges." These authors St. Jerome here refutes without naming them, indeed Christ Himself does so by saying and foretelling to Peter in v. 34: "You will deny Me three times." But St. Hilary and St. Ambrose can be excused on the ground that they meant only this — that Peter's words were so tempered that one could draw a true and pious sense out of them, and that Peter did not deny Christ in heart and mind, but only spoke ambiguously with his mouth, so that the words of his denial can be drawn to a good sense.
It is certain, therefore, that Peter denied Christ with his mouth, and accordingly sinned mortally. Thus St. Chrysostom here and St. Augustine in Tract 113 on John. Therefore Peter here, by denying Him, lost the grace and charity of God; whether he lost the faith is doubtful. St. Ambrose, Hilary, and their followers deny it. Others affirm it. Certainly, if any of the Apostles retained the faith of Christ (concerning which I spoke at v. 31), Peter [retained it...]
[Peter retained the faith], especially because as soon as Christ looked upon him he came to himself and wept bitterly for his conscience and the guilt of denying Christ: therefore he retained the faith in his mind, for this very faith was rousing him to penitence and to weeping.
Note secondly: Peter was permitted to fall so grievously for three reasons. The first is original, in that he arrogated too much to himself and trusted too much in his own constancy. So St. Basil, in his homily On Humility. The second is concomitant: that rashly, knowing himself to be frail and timid, he mingled himself with the company of the impious servants who had seized Jesus. The third, final reason, is that he, the future Shepherd of the Church, might learn from his own fall to have compassion on the fallen and to pity all sinners, and by his own example might give to all sinners a true model of repentance. Thus St. Chrysostom here; St. Leo, Sermon 10 On the Passion; St. Gregory, Homily 21, and others, according to that line:
"Not ignorant of evil, I learn to come to the aid of the wretched."
"The error of Peter," says St. Ambrose, "is the teaching of the just; and the tottering of Peter is the rock of all and our firmness."
Finally, this was the first denial of Christ by Peter, which happened a little after midnight, when the cocks first usually crow. For Mark, after this denial, immediately adds: "And [Peter] went out before the courtyard," into the vestibule which was adjacent to the courtyard, under the open sky. Fear was urging Peter to go out, lest the maid should again press him and urge that he was a disciple of Jesus; but Peter put forward another reason for this fear, e.g., the desire to take in some fresh, free air.
AND THE COCK CROWED. — This first crowing of the cock did not stir Peter from his fall to repentance, nor did it keep him from falling again and denying Christ, says St. Chrysostom; but for this it was necessary that Christ should look upon him and remind him of his fall, of which more shortly.
Verse 71: And When He Went Out the Gate, Another Maid Saw Him
71. AND WHEN HE WENT OUT THE GATE, ANOTHER MAID SAW (that is, took notice of, says St. Augustine) HIM, AND SAID TO THOSE WHO WERE THERE: THIS MAN ALSO WAS WITH JESUS THE NAZARENE. — This is the second temptation and denial of Peter, which happened after he, returning from the vestibule into which he had gone out (as I have already said), into the courtyard with the servants, again sat down by the fire, in order by this freedom to clear himself of the maid's accusation and to prove that he was not a disciple of Christ. But here he fell into a new snare of temptation: for, being recognized by another maid and questioned again, he denied Christ a second time — Christ being then called in contempt "Nazarene," as if the author of a new sect and as it were a heretic of that age. So St. Augustine, On the Harmony of the Gospels, Book 3, ch. 6, who also adds: "It is plainly gathered, when all the testimonies of the Evangelists about this matter are compared, that Peter did not deny him a second time before the gate, but inside in the courtyard at the fire; but Matthew and Mark mentioned that he had gone out, and for the sake of brevity passed over his return in silence."
Verse 72: And Again He Denied It With an Oath: I Do Not Know the Man
72. AND AGAIN HE DENIED IT WITH AN OATH: I DO NOT KNOW THE MAN. — When, as the maid was questioning Peter, others stirred up by the maid joined in, as is clear from Luke and John, asking the same thing and pressing him further, Peter, perceiving that he needed a stronger reply, added an oath to his denial — that is, perjury — because, as St. Gregory says: "A sin which is not blotted out by repentance soon by its own weight drags one to another;" both because it weighs upon, depresses, and weakens the conscience; and because the sinner, seeing that he has sinned, now thinks that he has fallen, and that it matters little if he falls again into the same sin; just as one who has fallen into the mud cares little if he falls a second time. So some Christians, when they have fallen into fornication or gluttony, repeat and frequent it forthwith, thinking: We have already fallen; let us fall again, and let us enjoy the same pleasure, because by the same confession and penance we shall do away with everything at once. But they are mistaken, both because the second sin is a new offense to God and inflicts a fresh wound, more harmful than the first, upon the soul; and because penance is more difficult after a sin has been repeated and made habitual than after a first lapse: "for perseverance in sin gives increase to crimes," says Rabanus. To this the company of the impious drove Peter on, and he did not abandon it even after his first lapse, although he ought entirely to have done so, having now experienced its harmfulness and his own weakness in its presence.
Verse 73: Surely You Too Are One of Them, For Even Your Speech Betrays You
73. AND AFTER A LITTLE WHILE THOSE WHO STOOD BY CAME UP, AND SAID TO PETER: SURELY YOU TOO ARE ONE OF THEM, FOR EVEN YOUR SPEECH MAKES YOU MANIFEST.
74. THEN HE BEGAN TO CURSE AND TO SWEAR THAT HE DID NOT KNOW THE MAN.
After a little while. — That is, "after an interval of about an hour," as Luke says. For the servants, intent upon Jesus and listening at the door to His examination, gave less heed to Peter; but soon, returning to the fire and turning their attention to Peter, they tried him a third time and drove him to a third denial. They gave the reason: "For your speech makes you manifest," namely, that you are a Galilean, a disciple of Jesus the Galilean, because you speak with the same accent, dialect, and idiom of words with which the Galileans speak — just as in Italy the Romans speak with one dialect, the Neapolitans with another, the Venetians with another, even though all speak Italian. There was added another accusation against Peter: for a kinsman of Malchus, whose ear Peter had cut off, said: "Did not I see you in the garden with Him?" as John reports in chapter 18. Therefore Peter, seeing himself pressed on every side and as it were driven to extremity, "began to curse and to swear that he did not know the man," saying after the Hebrew manner: May God do thus to me and add yet more if I know Jesus; may the earth open beneath me, may a thunderbolt strike me, may the heavenly powers destroy me, if I am Jesus' disciple. For "to curse," the Greek is katanathematizein, which is compounded from anathematizein, that is, "to anathematize," or anathema — that is, to call down execration upon oneself and devote oneself to dire imprecations, with
[and] with the preposition kata, which strengthens and intensifies the force of the verb to which it is added. "See how the more the others press and assert, the more vehemently Peter swears and the more obstinately he acts," says Victor of Antioch on Mark 14. "Consider here," says Cyril, Book 12 on John 1, "of what sort the Apostles were before the coming of the Holy Spirit, and of what sort they became after they had been clothed with power from on high:" for the very man who here trembles at the voice of a maid and a servant, afterward boldly set himself against the high priests, even unto blows.
AND IMMEDIATELY (the Syriac: at that very hour, or moment) THE COCK CROWED, — that He might make Peter mindful of Christ's prediction and call him from his fall to repentance. Luke adds: "And the Lord, turning, looked upon Peter. And Peter remembered the word of the Lord, as He had said: Before the cock crows, you will deny Me three times." That look of Christ, then, with which He looked upon Peter, was the cause, as St. Ambrose teaches, that Peter, who had not noticed the first crowing of the cock, took notice of this later one; and by it he was reminded of Christ's prediction, and began to repent and to weep. He looked upon him, then, and by looking Christ raised Peter up, says St. Leo. Furthermore, Christ looked upon Peter both with the eyes of His mind, by setting before Peter's mind the foulness of his denial and stirring him to penitence: so St. Augustine, Bede, Ambrose, and others; and also with the eyes of His body — because Christ, after His examination and being proclaimed worthy of death, seems to have been led back from the inner (or upper) hall to the outer courtyard, which was lower (as Mark has it), in which Peter was. There, turning Himself to Peter, He chastened him with the kindly nod of His eyes, reminded him of his fall, and called him back to Himself. Christ seems to have been led back into this courtyard so that, while the high priests were sitting down for a brief sleep on their couches, He might in the meantime be handed over to their servants to be guarded and mocked. Or else Christ, from the inner courtyard, looked upon Peter through the open door as he stood in the outer courtyard.
By His supreme providence Christ so disposed all things that a fitting opportunity might be given for looking upon Peter. In this matter marvel at the loftiness as well as the charity of Christ, who, though already proclaimed worthy of death and as it were forgetful of Himself amid so many mockings and blows, took thought for Peter, that He might call him back, like a lost sheep, into the way of salvation, teaching us to do the same. So did St. Chrysostom act, who, when he was driven into exile, and worn out by exhaustion, fever, hunger, thirst, and a thousand evils, and being driven to death, as it were forgetful of himself, took thought for his own people and indeed for others, as is evident from those most fervent letters which he then wrote to Olympias, to Cyriacus, to Pope Innocent, and to his own presbyter Constantius — in which he admonishes him not to let his spirits be cast down in this his persecution, but to lift them up and put on zeal for souls, and to send Apostolic men into Phoenicia to convert it, and concerning those sent and those converted by them, to take account and write back to him: for in a tempest the steersmen
[are recognized] for their industry and skill, just as a soldier is recognized in single combat, a general in battle, a physician in the crisis of an illness.
Hear St. Leo, in Sermon 3 On the Passion: "The Lord looked upon Peter, and amid the calumnies of the priests, amid the falsehoods of the witnesses, amid the injuries of those striking and spitting upon Him, He met the troubled disciple with those eyes by which He had foreseen him to be troubled; and on that disciple was turned the gaze of truth, where the correction of the heart was to be wrought, as though some voice of the Lord were sounding to him and saying: What is the matter, Peter? Why are you withdrawing into your conscience? Turn to Me, trust in Me, follow Me; this is the time of My Passion, the hour of your suffering has not yet come. Why do you fear what you yourself shall also overcome? Do not let the weakness which I have taken on confound you. I was anxious about your portion; do you be secure about Mine." Wherefore, as St. Jerome says, "it could not be that he should remain in the darkness of denial whom the Light of the world had looked upon."
Verse 75: Peter Remembered the Word of Jesus, and Going Out, He Wept Bitterly
75. AND PETER REMEMBERED THE WORD OF JESUS WHICH HE HAD SPOKEN: BEFORE THE COCK CROWS ("twice," as Mark adds), YOU SHALL DENY ME THREE TIMES. AND GOING OUT, HE WEPT BITTERLY. — Excellently does Origen say: "After the angel of the day (that is, the cock, by his crowing announcing that the rising of the sun and of the day was at hand) cried out to him, then he remembered." And Victor of Antioch, on Mark 14: "Roused by the cock's crow and as it were awakened from a deep sleep, he came back to himself, and discovered that he had fallen into that very evil and disgrace into which the Lord had a little before declared he would fall."
Symbolically: the cock given to each one by God is his own conscience, which, as often as anyone sins, cries out to him and says: Why are you committing so great a crime? Why do you offend God, hurt yourself, and expose yourself to the danger of hell? This cry pricks the conscience and goads it to repentance; and whoever hears and heeds it is truly pricked at heart along with Peter, and by repenting blots out his sin. So Laurentius Justinianus, in his book On the Combat of Christ, ch. 9. Again, the cock is the preacher, who by his voice exposes the sinner's sin and goads him to repentance. So St. Gregory, in Book 30 of the Moralia, ch. 4, explaining that text of Job 38: "Who gave the cock understanding?"
AND GOING OUT, — both because to weep in the sight of the Jews was not fitting, lest he betray himself, and because their very sight had been to him the cause of fear and of denying Christ. Now therefore, since he was repentant, this occasion of relapse had to be taken away from him and removed. He goes out, then, and there gives free rein to his tears: "For," as St. Jerome says, "he could not do penance while sitting in the courtyard of Caiaphas. He goes out from the council of the impious, that he may wash off with tears of love the filth of his fearful denial."
Calvin objects that Peter's repentance was lame, because he did not confess his fault before the Jews in whose presence he had denied Christ, nor did he take away the scandal which he had given them. I answer,
[I answer] that Peter gave no scandal to the Jews, who were utterly perverse and most obstinate in their hatred of Christ — by which he might have confirmed them in their hatred of Christ. Therefore, if he had retracted his denial of Christ in their presence, he would have done so without fruit, indeed with harm both to himself and to them: for he would have exposed himself to the danger of a relapse, and them to a greater indignation and hatred against Christ — who would consequently have punished Peter, and Christ still more, as guilty.
HE WEPT BITTERLY. — The Arabic: he wept with a bitter weeping, because great sorrow and sharp compunction at having denied Christ his Lord embittered his heart, so that he poured forth bitter tears, by which he might make satisfaction to God for his fault. "For," as St. Bernard says, "the tears of the penitent are the wine of angels;" indeed they are the wine of God and of Christ. Hear St. Ambrose, on Luke 22: "Why did he weep? Because guilt had crept upon him; Peter grieved and wept because he had erred as a man: it is common to fall, it belongs to faith to repent." But why did he not rather pray than weep? He answers: "Tears wash away the offense which shame keeps one from confessing with the voice; tears do not ask for pardon — they earn it. I find why Peter was silent: lest a request for pardon, made too quickly, should give greater offense — first one must weep, then pray." And after some intervening words: "Teach us, Peter, what your tears profited you. But you have already taught us at once: for you, who fell before you wept, after you wept were raised up, so that you might rule others, you who before had not ruled even yourself."
You will say: St. Ambrose in the same place says: "I read of his (Peter's) tears; I do not read of any satisfaction." The Calvinists twist these words in order to weaken works of satisfaction and take from them the power of making satisfaction — but they do so unskillfully and ineptly. For St. Ambrose by "satisfaction" understands the excusing of sin, as is plain from what he adds; as if to say: I read that Peter wept for his sin, not that he excused it, as men accused are accustomed to do before human judges; but Peter did not do so — he confessed his sin with tears of love, which therefore that they were works of satisfaction is, among the orthodox, not in doubt.
St. Clement, the disciple and successor of St. Peter, notes that Peter so repented that throughout the rest of his life, every night, on hearing the cock crow, he would fall on his knees, pour forth bitter tears, and again beg pardon from God and from Christ for his sin, although it had already been remitted. Hence too his eyes, from constant weeping, appeared as if sprinkled with blood, as Nicephorus testifies in Book 2, ch. 37. Finally, Peter compensated for this fall by living austerely until his death, eating lupines (which are bitter peas), as St. Gregory of Nazianzus testifies in his oration On the Love of the Poor; likewise by constant labors, Apostolic persecutions, hardships, and at last by the death of the cross, which he endured most steadfastly and most joyfully for Christ.
Read Book 4, ch. 5, of the Revelations of St. Bridget, where St. Peter, appearing to St. Bridget, relates that the cause of his fall was the forgetting of his own resolution and of the promise he had made to Christ. Whence he suggests to her this remedy against temptation: "Rise up," he says, "by humility to the Master of memory, and ask of Him memory."