Cornelius a Lapide
Table of Contents
Synopsis of the Chapter
First, the chief priests in council condemn Christ and hand Him over to Pilate, that He may likewise be condemned and put to death by him. And Judas, seeing what had happened, brings back the thirty pieces of silver, despairs, and hangs himself. Secondly, in v. 11, Pilate examines Christ, and finding Him innocent, tries to set Him free by setting Him beside Barabbas the assassin; but the Jews with one voice demand that Barabbas be released and that Christ be crucified. Thirdly, in v. 26, Pilate, overcome by these voices, hands over Christ scourged that He may be crucified; whereupon the soldiers, treating Him as a king of the Jews, but in mockery, place a crown of thorns upon Him in place of a golden royal one, give Him a reed for a scepter, and a scarlet cloak for purple. Fourthly, in v. 32, leading Him out to Golgotha, they place His cross upon Simon of Cyrene; and when Christ has been crucified there between two thieves, with the title "This is Jesus the Nazarene, King of the Jews," they divide His garments by lot, and mock Him with various reproaches and blasphemies. Fifthly, in v. 45, darkness covers the whole earth from the sixth hour to the ninth, at which Jesus, resigning His spirit to the Father, expires; then the veil of the temple is rent, the rocks are split, the tombs are opened, the bodies of the dead rise, the earth quakes; and seeing these things, the Centurion says, "Truly this was the Son of God." Sixthly, in v. 57, Joseph of Arimathea asks Pilate for the body of Christ, and buries it. The Jews place guards at the tomb.
Vulgate Text: Matthew 27:1-66
1. And when morning had come, all the chief priests and the elders of the people took counsel together against Jesus, to put Him to death. 2. And they led Him bound away, and delivered Him to Pontius Pilate the governor. 3. Then Judas, who betrayed Him, seeing that He was condemned, being moved with repentance, brought back the thirty pieces of silver to the chief priests and elders, 4. saying: I have sinned in betraying innocent blood. But they said: What is that to us? See thou to it. 5. And casting down the pieces of silver in the temple, he departed; and went and hanged himself with a halter. 6. But the chief priests, having taken the pieces of silver, said: It is not lawful to put them into the corbona, because it is the price of blood. 7. And after they had consulted together, they bought with them the potter's field, to be a burying place for strangers. 8. For this cause that field was called Haceldama, that is, the field of blood, even to this day. 9. Then was fulfilled that which was spoken by Jeremiah the prophet, saying: And they took the thirty pieces of silver, the price of Him that was prized, whom they prized of the children of Israel; 10. and they gave them unto the potter's field, as the Lord appointed to me. 11. And Jesus stood before the governor, and the governor asked Him, saying: Art Thou the King of the Jews? Jesus saith to him: Thou sayest it. 12. And when He was accused by the chief priests and elders, He answered nothing. 13. Then Pilate saith to Him: Dost Thou not hear how many things they witness against Thee? 14. And He answered him to never a word, so that the governor wondered exceedingly. 15. Now upon the solemn day the governor was accustomed to release to the people one prisoner, whom they would. 16. And he had then a notorious prisoner, who was called Barabbas. 17. They therefore being gathered together, Pilate said: Whom will ye that I release to you, Barabbas, or Jesus that is called Christ? 18. For he knew that for envy they had delivered Him up. 19. And as he was sitting in the place of judgment, his wife sent to him, saying: Have thou nothing to do with that just man; for I have suffered many things this day in a dream because of Him. 20. But the chief priests and elders persuaded the people, that they should ask Barabbas, and destroy Jesus. 21. And the governor answering, said to them: Whether will you of the two to be released unto you? But they said: Barabbas. 22. Pilate saith to them: What shall I do then with Jesus that is called Christ? 23. They all said: Let Him be crucified. The governor said to them: Why, what evil hath He done? But they cried out the more, saying: Let Him be crucified. 24. And Pilate seeing that he prevailed nothing, but that rather a tumult was made, taking water washed his hands before the people, saying: I am innocent of the blood of this just man; look you to it. 25. And the whole people answering, said: His blood be upon us and upon our children. 26. Then he released to them Barabbas, and having scourged Jesus, delivered Him unto them to be crucified. 27. Then the soldiers of the governor taking Jesus into the hall, gathered together unto Him the whole band; 28. and stripping Him, they put a scarlet cloak about Him; 29. and platting a crown of thorns, they put it upon His head, and a reed in His right hand. And bowing the knee before Him, they mocked Him, saying: Hail, King of the Jews. 30. And spitting upon Him, they took the reed, and struck His head. 31. And after they had mocked Him, they took off the cloak from Him, and put on Him His own garments, and led Him away to crucify Him. 32. And going out, they found a man of Cyrene, named Simon: him they forced to take up His cross. 33. And they came to the place that is called Golgotha, which is the place of Calvary. 34. And they gave Him wine to drink mingled with gall. And when He had tasted, He would not drink. 35. And after they had crucified Him, they divided His garments, casting lots; that it might be fulfilled which was spoken by the Prophet, saying: They divided My garments among them; and upon My vesture they cast lots. 36. And they sat and watched Him. 37. And they put over His head His cause written: This is Jesus the King of the Jews. 38. Then were crucified with Him two thieves: one on the right hand and one on the left. 39. And they that passed by, blasphemed Him, wagging their heads, 40. and saying: Vah! Thou that destroyest the temple of God, and in three days dost rebuild it: save Thyself; if Thou be the Son of God, come down from the cross. 41. In like manner also the chief priests, with the Scribes and elders, mocking, said: 42. He saved others; Himself He cannot save: if He be the King of Israel, let Him now come down from the cross, and we will believe Him; 43. He trusted in God; let Him now deliver Him if He will have Him; for He said: I am the Son of God. 44. And the same thing the thieves also, who were crucified with Him, reproached Him. 45. Now from the sixth hour there was darkness over the whole earth, until the ninth hour. 46. And about the ninth hour Jesus cried with a loud voice, saying: Eli, Eli, lamma sabacthani? that is, My God, My God, why hast Thou forsaken Me? 47. And some that stood there and heard, said: This man calleth Elias. 48. And immediately one of them running, took a sponge and filled it with vinegar; and put it on a reed, and gave Him to drink. 49. And the others said: Let be, let us see whether Elias will come to deliver Him. 50. And Jesus again crying with a loud voice, yielded up the ghost. 51. And behold the veil of the temple was rent in two from the top even to the bottom; and the earth quaked, and the rocks were rent, 52. and the graves were opened; and many bodies of the saints that had slept arose. 53. And coming out of the tombs after His resurrection, they came into the holy city, and appeared to many. 54. Now the centurion and they that were with him watching Jesus, having seen the earthquake and the things that were done, were sore afraid, saying: Indeed this was the Son of God. 55. And there were there many women afar off, who had followed Jesus from Galilee, ministering unto Him: 56. among whom was Mary Magdalene, and Mary the mother of James and Joseph, and the mother of the sons of Zebedee. 57. And when it was evening, there came a certain rich man of Arimathea, named Joseph, who also himself was a disciple of Jesus. 58. He went to Pilate, and asked the body of Jesus. Then Pilate commanded that the body should be delivered. 59. And Joseph taking the body, wrapped it up in a clean linen cloth. 60. And laid it in his own new monument, which he had hewn out in a rock. And he rolled a great stone to the door of the monument, and went his way. 61. And there was there Mary Magdalene, and the other Mary sitting over against the sepulchre. 62. And the next day, which followed the day of preparation, the chief priests and the Pharisees came together to Pilate, 63. saying: Sir, we have remembered, that that seducer said while He was yet alive: After three days I will rise again. 64. Command therefore the sepulchre to be guarded until the third day; lest perhaps His disciples come and steal Him away, and say to the people: He is risen from the dead; and the last error shall be worse than the first. 65. Pilate said to them: You have a guard; go, guard it as you know. 66. And they departing, made the sepulchre sure, sealing the stone, and setting guards.
Verse 1: And When Morning Was Come, All the Chief Priests and Elders of the People Took Counsel Against Jesus
Morning. — "Behold," says St. Jerome, "the eagerness of the priests in evil," according to that of Psalm 13: "Their feet are swift to shed blood." An immense hatred against Christ, and the instigation of the devil, was urging them on to this. This was the morning of the sixth day, that is, of Friday, on which after a few hours Christ was crucified by them. And so Caiphas, who in the night with a few had examined and condemned Christ, in the morning summoned the great and full council, which is called the Sanhedrin, and consisted of seventy men, that is, senators, in order that Christ might be condemned by it altogether, and being condemned might be handed over to Pilate, lest Pilate might be able to absolve Him as one already condemned by the whole council. Matthew is silent about what was done in this council, because in it the examination and condemnation of Christ — which he had related in the preceding chapter, verses 59 and following — was repeated. Luke, however, supplies and tells what was done in it, in chapter 22:66: "And as soon as it was day, the Elders of the people, and the Chief Priests, and the Scribes came together, and they brought Him into their council, saying: If Thou be the Christ, tell us. And He saith to them: If I shall tell you, you will not believe Me; and if I shall also ask you, you will not answer Me, nor let Me go. But hereafter the Son of Man shall be sitting at the right hand of the power of God. Then said they all: Art Thou then the Son of God? Who said: You say that I am. And they said: What need we any further testimony? for we ourselves have heard it from His own mouth." This I have explained in the preceding chapter, verse 89.
Excellently St. Leo, Sermon 3 On the Passion: "This morning," he says, "destroyed for you (O Jews) the temple and the altars, took away the Law and the Prophets, removed the kingdom and the priesthood, turned all your festivals into eternal mourning."
That (Greek ὅπως, that is, "in what way") They Might Deliver Him to Death — namely, by what means they might kill Him without obstacle and uproar; likewise with what kind of death they might afflict Him, that is, the cross, which was of the greatest pain as well as infamy. It is likely that there were in this council some followers or friends of Christ, who either absented themselves from this council, or were not called by Caiphas, or were sent elsewhere, lest they should defend Christ in the council: but if any of them were present at the council, they either gave their vote for Christ, or, overcome by the shouting of the rest, kept silent: such were Nicodemus and Joseph of Arimathea, Luke 23:51.
Note: This impious council erred, not only in fact, but also in faith, because it declared, indeed pronounced sentence, that Jesus was not the Christ, nor the Son of God; but that He had falsely arrogated to Himself both titles, and was therefore guilty of death: all of which are erroneous and heretical; but this council was particular and small, that is, made up of Jews alone, indeed of inhabitants of Jerusalem alone. It is otherwise with the Ecumenical councils of Christians, to which the Bishops of all the provinces are summoned, who represent the whole Church, and therefore by Christ's promise have the Holy Spirit assisting them, so that they do not err in faith. You will say: Then at that time the whole Jewish Church erred and fell from the faith. I answer: I deny the consequence, both because among Christ's disciples, who had been converted by Christ and were scattered throughout all Judea, many persevered in His faith; and because among the Jews diffused throughout all Judea there were many true faithful and religious men who followed the faith of their fathers, of whom many at Pentecost were converted to Christ, as is clear from Acts 2.
Verse 2: And They Led Him Away Bound, and Delivered Him to Pontius Pilate the Governor
"For, as St. Jerome says, the Jews had this custom, that whomever they had condemned to death, they would deliver bound to the judge. Here is Samson bound by Delilah, Christ bound by the Synagogue." Truly Origen says: "They bound Jesus, He who looses from bonds and says to those who are in bonds: Come forth; and who looses those that are fettered, saying: Let us break their bonds asunder." For Jesus was bound for this reason: because He took upon Himself the bonds of guilt and of the punishments due to our guilt to atone for them, that He might absolve us from them.
They Led Him, — namely Caiphas, with all the rest of the senators of the council, that by their authority they might oppress not only Jesus but also Pilate, and force him likewise to condemn and execute Jesus, who had already been examined and condemned by them. And if he refused, they would all accuse him as one guilty of aspiring to the kingdom of Judea, and therefore as an enemy and rebel of Caesar, and by this charge they would force Pilate, even against his will, to adjudge Him to death — as in fact happened.
They Delivered Him to Pontius Pilate: — Why? Some think, from what is said in the Talmud, that the Jews were not permitted to crucify anyone, but only to strangle, or stone, or burn, or behead: that the Jews therefore handed Christ over to Pilate that he might crucify Him. But that this is false is clear from Deuteronomy 21:23: "When," he says, "a man has sinned a sin worthy of death, and being condemned has been hanged on a gibbet, his body shall not remain on the wood, but in the same day shall be buried." Thus Moses hung up on gibbets those who worshipped Beelphegor, Numbers 25:4; and Joshua, in 8:29, hung up the king of Ai; David, the sons of Saul, 2 Kings (Samuel) 21:6 and 9.
The true cause, then, why the Jews did not kill Christ, but handed Him over to Pilate to be killed, is that the Romans, having defeated and subdued the Jews, took away from them the right of execution and the power of killing, and reserved it to themselves, as is clear from John 18:31: "It is not lawful for us," the Jews say to Pilate, "to put any man to death." Hence Josephus, in book XX of the Antiquities, chapter VIII, writes that the high priest Ananus, because together with the council he had killed James the brother of the Lord and certain others without the consent of the Roman governor, was deprived of his pontificate. Therefore that the Jews stoned Stephen, and often wanted to stone Christ, was done not by right but by injury and the impetus of the raging populace. So Toletus, Maldonatus, Franciscus Lucas and others.
Add here that the chief priests handed Christ over to Pilate to be killed for other reasons as well. The first was, that they might remove from themselves the infamy of having killed Christ, namely that they had killed Him out of envy. Therefore they hand Him over to Pilate as a Roman and Gentile, and thus a fair man, whom the cause of Christ did not touch, that he might condemn Him whom the people would believe was condemned out of pure reason and not out of envy.
The second, because the chief priests wished to grind down and erase utterly Christ's honor and glory, and to show that He was not the Christ but a pseudo-Christ. Therefore they hand Him over to Pilate, that he may condemn Him as a brigand and rebel against Caesar to an infamous death, and crucify Him among brigands. As will be clear at John 18:32. For the Jews had condemned Christ as a blasphemer; but the penalty for blasphemers by the Law, Leviticus 26:16, was stoning, not the cross: so that they might crucify Christ, they hand Him over to Pilate, that he may, by the Roman law which condemns rebels and seditious men to the cross, crucify Christ as a rebel against Caesar.
The third, because the day on which these things were done was the most holy feast of the Passover, on which sacred rites and sacrifices were to be performed by the priests in the temple, and so blood and slaughter were entirely to be avoided. Therefore they hand Him over to Pilate the Gentile, that he may kill Him during the Passover as on a day profane to himself, thinking that they would thereby inflict greater disgrace on Christ if on the solemn day of the Passover, when all the Jews flocked to Jerusalem, He Himself, in the sight of all, as one profane, should be killed by the profane Pilate, who was profaning the day of the Passover. So St. Chrysostom here, homily 86, and St. Augustine, tract 114 on John, and St. Cyril, book XII on John, chapter 6.
Moreover, God inflicted on the Jews the penalty of retaliation: for just as they handed Christ over to be slain to Pilate the Roman governor, so in turn they were themselves handed over by God to the Roman Emperors Titus and Vespasian to be devastated and cut down, as St. Cyril notes on John 18, and Theophylact and Victor of Antioch on Mark 14.
Verse 3: Then Judas, Who Betrayed Him, Seeing That He Was Condemned, Repenting Himself, Brought Back the Thirty Pieces of Silver
Judas, in selling Christ to the Jews, did not think that Christ would be killed by them, but only that He would be seized, and once seized would either give them satisfaction or by His own power slip from their hands, as He had escaped on other occasions; but when he saw Him condemned to death, he noticed the gravity of his guilt, that he himself was the cause of Christ's death: wherefore having become repentant too late, he condemned and hanged himself. "For such is the devil," says Chrysostom, "that he does not let go of a man — unless he be vigilant — before the final outcome, to foresee the magnitude of the sin, lest, being led to repentance, he draw back from sin; but when the sin has been completed in every measure, then he permits him to see, that he may afflict him with grief and cast him into despair. For Judas was not bent at all by Christ's many warnings; but when the matter came to its final result, then he is led to repentance — yet not then usefully nor as he ought."
That He Was Condemned — by Caiphas the high priest and the whole council, and therefore that by their authority, hatred, and importunity He would soon be condemned by Pilate, on account of the obstinacy of the chief priests accusing Him and pressing Him to death.
Led by Repentance, — not true and genuine repentance: for this includes the hope of pardon, which Judas lacked; but a forced, tormenting, and desperate repentance, such as is produced by the bad conscience that torments and gnaws the damned, who are tormented by the fire of hell. For this is what the Greek μεταμεληθείς means.
He Brought Back the Thirty Pieces of Silver to the Chief Priests, — that he might rescind the contract entered into with them, as if to say: I revoke the contract entered into with you, and therefore I restore to you the price given to me, that you in turn may restore to liberty Jesus, whom I sold to you at this price. For, as St. Ambrose says on Luke 22: "In pecuniary matters, the right is wont to be dissolved when the price is refunded." Moreover, "Judas," says Hilary, "performing penance, returned the price of Christ's blood to the priests, that, although he himself was the author of the blood that was sold, nevertheless the very profession of the seller would convict the unbelief of those buying." And St. Ambrose: "Although," he says, "the repentance of the traitor was vain, yet there is some shame in his crime — to acknowledge his guilt; and although he is not absolved, nevertheless the impudence of the Jews is refuted, who, though the profession of the seller convicts them, still wickedly claim the rights of the contract."
I Have Sinned in Betraying Just Blood. — In Greek ἀθῷον, that is "innocent": for what is more innocent than the spotless lamb? what is purer than the purity of Jesus Christ?
But They Said: What Is That to Us? See Thou to It. — What you have stirred up, you eat; bear the penalty of your guilt, which you acknowledge: we acknowledge no guilt in ourselves, but esteem Jesus as a pseudo-Christ guilty of death, and therefore we pursue Him to death and press Him on. The chief priests refused to receive the denarii offered by Judas, lest they should be forced to rescind the contract and let Jesus go. Wherefore Judas threw them into the temple, as follows, and despairing of Jesus' life, and consequently of his own salvation, hanged himself: for if, the price being returned, the chief priests had freed Jesus, certainly Judas would not have despaired or hanged himself. Up to this point therefore Judas's repentance was upright, but the same became wicked when, on their refusing to release Jesus, he despaired and in despairing hanged himself. "See how they refuse," says Chrysostom, "to look at how great a thing they were daring; which makes their guilt the greater. For openly they testify by their action that they are carried away by passion of the most audacious iniquity, and unwilling to draw back from what they had wrongly begun, foolishly covering themselves with a feigned veil of ignorance."
Verse 5: And Casting Down the Pieces of Silver in the Temple, He Departed; and Going Away Hanged Himself With a Halter
Note: Judas brought back the pieces of silver to the house of Caiphas, or certainly of Pilate, to the chief priests who were accusing Christ before him; and when they refused to receive them, he went away into the temple, and there cast them down, that they might be gathered up by the priests and returned to the chief priests. Perhaps also some of the chief priests had already gone from Caiphas and from Pilate into the temple, to celebrate the sacred rites and the Paschal sacrifices: at their feet, therefore, Judas threw down these denarii, that, so far as in him lay, he might rescind the contract, condemn his betrayal, and, if he could, restore the reputation and life of Jesus' innocence: for if he had cast them down in the house of Caiphas or of Pilate, the ministers and attendants of the chief priests would at once have gathered them up and claimed them for themselves without any benefit to Judas. He cast them down therefore in the temple, as the sacred price of the most sacred Christ, and therefore, if the chief priests were unwilling to receive it, to be spent on sacred and pious uses.
And Going Away Hanged Himself With a Halter. — The Syriac, "he strangled himself"; the Ethiopic, "he hanged himself with a halter and died." Theophylact therefore and the Greeks are wrong, who think that Judas did not die by hanging, but was afterwards crushed by a chariot. See what is said at Acts 1:18. To the most grievous sin of betrayal Judas added another not more grievous but more harmful, that of despair. For this drove him into the depths of Tartarus, to the seat of Lucifer. For if as a penitent he had asked pardon of Christ, even already condemned, He would surely have obtained it from Him, but the enormity of his betrayal, with the devil acting upon him, struck so much horror into him that he despaired of pardon like Cain, and therefore immediately, before the death of Christ, on that very same day, he hanged himself, not bearing so great a remorse and reproach of his crying conscience, as St. Leo teaches, Sermon 3 On the Passion; St. Augustine, or whoever is the author of the Questions on the New and Old Testament, Question 94, and others.
This David had prophesied concerning Judas in Psalm 34:8, saying: "Let a snare which he knoweth not come upon him; and let the net which he hath hidden catch him: and into that very snare let him fall." Hear Saint Leo, Sermon 3: "Wherefore, Judas, you proved yourself more wicked and unhappy than all others, since penitence did not call you back to the Lord, but despair dragged you to the noose." And a little further on: "Why do you doubt His goodness, who did not repel you from the communion of His Body and Blood? who did not deny you the kiss of peace when you came with crowds and a cohort of armed men to seize Him? But, an unconvertible man, a spirit going forth and not returning, you followed the madness of your heart, and with the devil standing at your right hand, you turned back upon your own head the iniquity which you had armed against the head of all the Saints, so that, because your crime had exceeded all measure of vengeance, your impiety might have you as judge, and your punishment suffer you as executioner."
Some hand down that Judas hanged himself from a fig tree, just as the Hebrews hand down that the forbidden tree from which Adam and Eve ate was a fig tree: therefore the fig was an unhappy tree for man. Whence Juvencus sings: And having begun to take his own punishment by the noose, / The fig tree snatched his shapeless death from its top.
Avarice drove Judas to this. Hear Saint Chrysostom: "Hear these things, hear, I say, you greedy ones, ponder in your mind what he suffered; for he both lost the money, and committed the crime, and destroyed his soul: which is what the cruel tyranny of avarice is wont to do. He did not enjoy the silver, nor did he enjoy this present life, nor will he enjoy the future life — he lost everything together; and having stirred up a base estimation of himself among those to whom he had betrayed Christ, at last he broke his throat with a noose."
Finally, this confession of Judas — not verbal but real, namely his very hanging in despair — was a clear testimony of Christ's innocence, which ought to have drawn the Jews back from killing Him, if they had even a crumb of shame or conscience: but so great was their obstinacy and malice, that they could not be called back from it even by so unprecedented a portent.
Symbolically: Bede, on Acts chapter 1, says: "He found a punishment fitting for himself, that the knot of the noose should slay the throat through which the voice of treachery had gone out; and that he who had handed over the Lord of men and Angels to death, hated by heaven and earth, should perish in mid-air; and that the bowels which had conceived the deceit of treachery should burst and fall out." Saint Bernard, Sermon 8 on Psalm 90: "Judas burst asunder in the middle of the air, the colleague of the aerial powers, inasmuch as neither heaven could receive nor earth sustain the betrayer of Him who was true God and man, who had come from heaven to work salvation in the midst of the earth." Again Saint Augustine, Book of Homilies 50, homily 27: "What he did in his own body," he says, "was done also in his soul. Just as those who tie their own neck thereby kill themselves, because the breath of this air does not enter into them, so those who despair of God's mercy, by that very despair suffocate themselves within, so that the Holy Spirit cannot visit them."
Verse 6: It Is Not Lawful to Put Them Into the Corbona, Because It Is the Price of Blood
"Corban," or "Corbona," in Hebrew, is the same as oblation. Hence by metonymy here it signifies the treasury, or gazophylacium, into which offerings were cast. Hence the Arabic translates it, "the house (chest) of offerings." See Josephus, Wars, Book I, chapter 8.
Because It Is the Price of Blood. — Note here the hypocrisy of the priests, because they feign zeal for religion and honesty, so as not to allow the price of Christ's blood to be brought into the sacred treasury, as something impure and polluted — when yet these same men purchased and shed Christ's most pure Blood with that very money; nay rather, as it seems, they had taken this price from the corbona itself and given it to Judas, as if it were a price of piety for the seizing and punishing of Christ, as if He were a criminal and an enemy of their religion.
Verse 7: They Bought With Them the Potter's Field, for a Burial Place for Strangers
"For they saw," says Origen, "that it was more fitting to spend that money on the dead, and on a place for the dead and for burial, since it was the price of blood."
For Strangers. — On behalf of strangers, or guests, namely those who, coming to Jerusalem from Judea or elsewhere, died there: for the Jerusalemites themselves had already destined their own tombs for themselves. This was done by God's plan, so that this field, perpetually standing, might be a perpetual witness of Judas's repentance, and consequently of Christ's innocence and of the Jews' Christ-killing. "The name given to the place," says Chrysostom, "more clearly than any trumpet, proclaims their wicked murder." And a little later: "For if they had cast the money into the corbona, the matter would not have been so manifest; but now, with the field having been bought, they have betrayed the whole affair even to posterity."
Symbolically: by this deed it was signified that the price of Christ's blood would profit not the native Jews, but strangers — that is, the Gentiles who would believe in Him. So Hilary: "Nothing," he says, "of this pertains to Israel, and the entire use of this world (purchased with the price of Christ's blood) belongs to others."
Haceldama. — Properly and precisely it should be said "chakeldama." For the Hebrews call a field הלק chelec, but the Chaldeans, by metathesis, say "chakel." This word is therefore Chaldean. The Syriac has "aguresca," which word is derived from the Greek ἀγρὸς and Latin "ager." So Pagninus and others. Moreover, not only the Chaldeans, but also the Syrians and Arabs, use "chakel" for field. Hence the Arabic here has "Hacaldama"; nor does it interpret it, as the Latin does, saying: "This is the field of blood." The Ethiopic translates it, and "it was called that place Medduradam" in Ethiopic, that is, the land of blood; the Persian, "and the name of its field unto this day, Haceldami," that is, the field of blood. Hear what Brochardus, Nicephorus, Bredembachius, Saligniacus, and from them Adrichomius write about this field of blood, or Haceldama, in his Description of Jerusalem, no. 216, p. 173: "Haceldama, or the potter's field, lies on the southern side of Mount Sion, the middle of which Saint Helena had enclosed by four walls — seventy-two feet in length and fifty in width — and vaulted above by a roof (which is open with seven holes through which the bodies of deceased Christians are let down). The power of this earth is wonderful and almost beyond belief, in that it reduces the bodies of the dead to dust within the space of twenty-four hours, and it does not at all lose this power when conveyed to other regions. For when, by order of the Empress Helena, as much of this earth as several ships could hold was carried to Rome and unloaded next to the Vatican Hill in that place which the inhabitants call the Campo Santo, although it has changed climate, daily experience teaches that it nevertheless retains the same force. For, rejecting the Romans, it admits only the bodies of pilgrims for burial: of whom too it here entirely consumes the whole substance of the flesh within twenty-four hours, leaving only the bones." Thus far Adrichomius. Often at Rome I saw, and visited, the Campo Santo, and I heard from the parish priest of the place itself, and from his attendants and other Romans, that the matter is so.
Tropologically: Haceldama, that is, the field purchased with the price of Christ's blood for strangers, is the Church, says Saint Chrysostom and Augustine, Sermon 114 De Tempore, and especially the state of religious, who reckon themselves strangers on earth, and citizens of heaven and members of God's household, and therefore share in the fruit of Christ's blood, that is, in grace and glory: of whom Saint Peter says in 1 Peter 2: "I beseech you as strangers and pilgrims, to refrain yourselves from carnal desires." Where Saint Chrysostom says: "Nothing is more blessed than this burial, over which all rejoice — Angels, and men, and the Lord of Angels. If this life is not life, but our life is hidden, we ought to live this life as men dead." And Saint Paul, Colossians 3: "You are dead, and your life is hid with Christ in God." Perhaps for this reason, and as this symbol, the flesh of those buried in the Campo Santo is consumed within 24 hours, as I said a little before. See what is said on Acts 1:18 and 19.
Verse 9: Then Was Fulfilled That Which Was Spoken by Jeremy the Prophet
I have explained this passage at Zechariah 11:12 and 13, wherefore I will not repeat here what was said there.
The Price of Him That Was Prized. — In Greek, τὴν τιμὴν τοῦ τετιμημένου, that is, the price of Him who was valued at a price — namely, of the Messiah or Christ, who is beyond price, says Theophylact. "Whom they prized," that is, at this price of thirty denarii the chief priests valued and bought Him "of the children of Israel;" that is, from Judas, who was one of the children of Israel, say Titelmannus and Barradius. He adds this because it increases the indignity of the selling of Christ, that He was sold not by a Gentile, but by an Israelite — one who was a son of Israel, that is, of Jacob the faithful and holy patriarch, and indeed was given the name of Judah, who was foremost among the sons of Jacob. It is a syllepsis or enallage of number: for the plural is put for the singular. Theophylact takes it differently: he refers the τὸ "of the children of Israel" to the τὸ "prized," as though to say: "Christ was prized by the children of Israel, that is, by the chief priests" — that is, He was bought at the price of thirty denarii. Differently also, but more difficultly, Euthymius and others, who supply the τὸ "who were," as though to say: "Those who were of the children of Israel, that is, the Israelites, prized Christ at thirty denarii."
Moreover, the Syriac translates it in the first person: "and I received thirty pieces of silver, the price of Him to be honored" (the Arabic: "the price of the innocent one") "about whom they made a covenant from the children of Israel, and I gave them for the potter's field": namely ἔλαβον can be translated either "I received" or "they received"; and instead of ἔδωκαν, that is "they gave," the Syriac reads ἔδωκα, that is "I gave": which reading agrees very well with the words of Zechariah 11:12-13: "And I took the thirty pieces of silver, and I cast them into the house of the Lord to the potter."
As the Lord Appointed to Me. — These words can be taken in two ways: First, as the words of Christ, who continues speaking through the Prophet, as if to say: "With the price of thirty denarii, for which I, Christ, was sold, this field was bought, as the Lord appointed to me, that is, concerning me"; as if to say: "God did not wish anything of what was from me, or mine, to perish, but that all and each of my things should be expended for the benefit of men: wherefore He willed that even the field bought with the price of my blood should not be idle, but should serve for the burial of strangers." Second, as the words of the Prophet about himself, as if to say: "I, the Prophet, foretell that the field is to be bought with the price of Christ's blood, because thus the Lord appointed and ordained to me, that I should foretell and prophesy this very thing, both in word and in deed; for this price of His was too cheap and unworthy of Christ." Whence Zechariah 11:12-13 ironically calls this price "goodly": "A goodly price," he says, "that I was prized at by them."
Verse 11: Jesus Stood Before the Governor: Art Thou the King of the Jews?
With the history and tragic case of Judas finished, Matthew returns to Jesus, whom, in verse 1, he said had been handed over by the chief priests to Pilate, that he might condemn and kill Him. Note: Matthew here passes over in silence many things which from John 18:19 and following must be placed before this verse of Matthew, namely first, Pilate had asked the chief priests: "What accusation bring you against this man?" The chief priests answered proudly: "If he were not a malefactor, we would not have delivered him up to thee." Angered by this reply, Pilate said: "Take him you, and judge him according to your law": but the law commanded blasphemers (which is what the chief priests reckoned Jesus to be) to be stoned. Soon the chief priests, because they wished Christ to be crucified for greater infamy, objected on the contrary: "It is not lawful for us to put any man to death," namely because this right had been taken from them by the Romans, and this came about by this design, says John, "that the word of Jesus," which we heard at Matthew 20:18, "might be fulfilled, signifying what death he should die," namely the shameful and most harsh death — that is, He was to be brought to the cross by Pilate and the Romans. For the cross, among the Romans, was the punishment proper to sedition and to aspiring to a kingdom (as Lipsius shows, On the Cross, Book I, chapter 14), which is what the chief priests here charge Christ with; and accordingly that crime, in this place, having been committed against Caesar, had to be punished with the cross by Pilate, Caesar's governor: hence he himself inscribed on the cross this title, as the cause of Christ's death: "Jesus of Nazareth, King of the Jews."
Moreover, the chief priests, seeing that Pilate was not moved by their authority and prejudgment of Christ's condemnation, but demanded the cause and the crimes of which they accused Him, so that from these he might see and judge whether Jesus were guilty of death or not — for this reason they bring forth three charges and accuse Jesus before Pilate, as it were, as guilty of death. Luke recounts these in 23:2, namely saying: first, "We have found this man perverting our nation"; second, "And forbidding to give tribute to Caesar"; third, "And saying that he is Christ a king"; a fourth Pilate adds in the letter which he wrote on the case of Jesus to Tiberius the Emperor — which exists in Hegesippus, Book V — namely that the Jews had also charged Christ with magic, that He performed wonders and miracles by the help of a demon, as a magician, because the Jews had said of Christ: "By Beelzebub, the prince of devils, he casts out devils," Matthew 12:24. All these were utterly false, and specifically concerning the tribute, the contrary — namely that it should be given to Caesar — Christ had clearly said in Matthew 22:17; nay, in fact He Himself paid the tribute for Himself and for Peter, chapter 17:27.
Wherefore Pilate, who from public report had heard many distinguished things about Jesus's integrity of life, doctrine, and miracles, neglected and despised these as fabricated from the hatred and envy of the chief priests against Christ; and he only asked Jesus whether He Himself were the king of the Jews — either because, sprung from the blood of kings, the right of the kingdom of Judea pertained to Him; or because, by the title of Messiah, or some other similar title, that pertained to Jesus. Jesus answered Pilate and asked Him in turn, as John supplies in 18:34: "Sayest thou this thing of thyself, or have others told it thee of me?" Jesus knew that the chief priests had said this to Pilate, and had accused Him before him of aspiring to the kingdom of Judea, but He wished by His questioning to prick Pilate, that he might remember that these were the words and calumny of the Jews, that is, of his own enemies — since Pilate himself, as governor, whose duty was to safeguard Caesar's name and full empire, and accordingly to take care that no one should call himself king of Judea, and who had until now been vigilant in his office, had never heard any such thing about Jesus.
Pilate, irritated by this question from Jesus, answered: "Am I a Jew?" — that is, that I should know or care about your race, lineage, and other matters of yours, you who are a Jew? As if to say: "By no means; for I am a Gentile and a Roman governor: 'Thy own nation and the chief priests have delivered thee unto me — what hast thou done?'" This is what Jesus desired to elicit and hear from Pilate's mouth; whence to his straightforward question, whether He Himself were king, He answered clearly and directly: "My kingdom is not of this world. If my kingdom were of this world, my servants would certainly strive that I should not be delivered to the Jews: but now my kingdom is not from hence. Pilate therefore said to him: Art thou a king then? Jesus answered: Thou sayest that I am a king. For this was I born, and for this came I into the world; that I should give testimony to the truth. Every one that is of the truth, heareth my voice. Pilate saith to him: What is truth? And when he had said this, he went out again to the Jews, and saith to them: I find no cause in him."
Christ told Pilate that His kingdom was not of this world — that is, that it was not worldly and earthly, human and temporal, made up of human pomps, laws, soldiers, arms, garrisons, such that Tiberius Caesar should have to fear from Him that he be deprived of the lordship of Judea by Him; but that it was heavenly, spiritual, and transcendent, by which He reigns in the minds of the faithful through faith and grace, so that He may lead them to His heavenly kingdom. Matthew, for the sake of brevity, mentions only this last point, as if assigning it as the true cause of Christ's death, the others being omitted, saying: "And the governor asked him, saying: Art thou the king of the Jews? Jesus saith to him: Thou sayest it," as if to say: "I am king of the Jews, just as you say, that is, I am the Messiah King." Christ could truly have said: "I am not king of the Jews — namely, in a temporal sense, such as Herod is — nor have I affected or aspired to the kingdom of Judea"; but because the Jews understood by "king of the Jews" the Messiah, hence Christ, lest He deny that He was the Messiah, that is, the Christ, confessed that He was king of the Jews — that is, that He was the Messiah King promised to the Jews by the Prophets.
You will ask: of what kind and how many kinds is the kingdom of Christ? I answer: Christ, as man, had a twofold kingdom, even while He lived on earth. The first was spiritual, namely the Church. For this He instituted as a kind of commonwealth of the faithful in Judea, and ordered it by certain laws, ordinances, Sacraments, etc., and rules it through Saint Peter and his successors as His vicars, and propagates it through all nations. This is the kingdom which the Prophets foretold should be given to the Messiah, that is, to Christ, as David and the Prophets foretold: so Saint Augustine, tract 115 on John. The second kingdom of Christ, as Saint Thomas rightly teaches in On the Government of Princes, Book I, chapter 12, and others against Abulensis on Matthew chapter 21, Question 30, is physical and οἰκονομικόν, that is, worldly. For Christ, from the first instant of His conception, properly and directly had the kingdom and dominion of the whole world, at least as to right and power, so that He could depose any kings whomsoever from their kingdom and create others, although He did not use this power on earth.
For this, note that there are three kinds of dominion and kingdom. The first is the supreme and divine, which God holds over all creatures, as His own things. This is proper to God alone. The second is the lowest and human, such as kings, Emperors, and earthly princes have. The third, and the middle between these two, is the kingdom and empire of Christ as man, because this far exceeds and surpasses all human kingdoms, and all the other kingdoms of kings, scepters, and rights: first, in origin, because it flows from God, not from man; for God gave this to Christ, not the commonwealth of men; second, in firmness, because it is insuperable, perpetual, and eternal; third, in object, because it extends to all created things, even to the angels. That this is so is clear, because Christ is said to have written on His thigh, that is, on His humanity: "King of kings, and Lord of lords," Apoc. 19:16; likewise He is said to be "the Prince of the kings of the earth," Apoc. 1:5; and again He says of Himself: "All power is given to me in heaven and in earth," Matt. 28. For this empire was due to Christ as man by reason of the hypostatic union with the Word, that is, the Son of God, namely that He, because by it He had been taken up into the Son of God, should be heir and Lord of all things. Wherefore this kingdom is proper to Christ as man, which He has communicated to no one — not even to Saint Peter and his successors the Pontiffs.
You will ask again, whether Christ, as man, had a human right to the kingdom of the Jews? I answer that He did; for He Himself was the son of David and of the other kings of Judea, as is evident from Matthew 1, and therefore their successor and heir. Yet He did not in fact take possession of this kingdom, nor was He inaugurated as king in it; yet He gave a certain specimen of it, when on Palm Sunday, in solemn pomp, riding on an ass as a Messiah king, He entered Jerusalem, and the crowd cried out to Him: "Hosanna to the son of David," Matt. 21; but, as I said, in fact Christ did not take up nor administer this kingdom, especially because long before Him the kingdom of David's family had ceased in Jeconiah and Sedecias, who were the last kings of the Jews from the stock of David, and afterwards this kingdom was transferred by the common consent of the people to the Asmonaeans, namely to Judas, Jonathan, and Simon Maccabees, and their descendants.
Verse 12: And When He Was Accused by the Chief Priests and Ancients, He Answered Nothing
The first cause was that all the things which were objected against Him were manifestly false and unworthy of a reply. So Saint Augustine, Sermon 118 De Tempore: "The Lord by His silence does not confirm the accusation," he says, "but despises it by not repelling it: better is the cause which is not defended and yet is proved; fuller is the justice which is not built up with words, but is supported by truth. The Savior, who is Wisdom, knew how to conquer by being silent, how to overcome by not answering." The second, because Jesus knew that He would answer in vain and would more enrage by His answer the Jews raging for His death. The third, lest, by clearing the charge, He should be dismissed by the governor and the benefit of the cross deferred, says Saint Jerome — because He willed by His silence to be condemned and to die for the salvation of men. So Saint Ambrose on Luke chapter 23: "He is silent rightly," he says, "who needs no defense; those eager to be defended are those who fear to be conquered. What should He fear, who did not seek His own safety? Of all men He alone betrays His own, that He may gain all men's." The fourth, that by His silence He might atone and expiate all the lies, perjuries, blasphemies, curses, calumnies, etc., which men commit by speaking, and might teach them to bridle their tongue, and to impose silence on the mouth in evil, idle, and vain matters.
Verse 13: Then Pilate Saith to Him: Hearest Thou Not How Great Testimonies They Allege Against Thee?
For Pilate had led Jesus out of his house, so that he might hear the accusations of the chief priests, who were unwilling to enter the praetorium, lest they be contaminated by the house and tribunal of the Gentile governor, but that they might eat the Passover in purity, that is, the victims offered or about to be offered at Passover, as John says in 18:28.
Verse 14: He Answered Him Not to Any Word, So That the Governor Wondered Exceedingly
Pilate marveled that Jesus, innocent, wise, and eloquent, placed at the extreme crisis of His life — when He was being furiously accused and urged to death by the most powerful chief priests — was silent. He marveled, then, at the modesty, equanimity, loftiness, and contempt for death of His soul, and from this all the more recognized His innocence and sanctity, and tried in every way to free Him from the hands of the Jews. Hear Saint Athanasius, Sermon On the Passion and the Cross: "Truly great and wonderful was this in the Savior, that by being silent and not answering He was so effective in persuading, that the judge of his own accord both recognized and confessed the factions and conspiracies entered into against Him." So the Saints often refute calumnies cast upon them more by silence than by answering. For the silence of an innocent life is more vocal than any defense, however verbose.
Verse 15: Upon the Solemn Day the Governor Was Accustomed to Release to the People One Prisoner
Before this verse, from Luke 23:5 and following, it must be supplied and prefixed: that Pilate, when he heard that Jesus was a Galilean, in order to extricate himself from condemning Him, sent Him to Herod, king of Galilee, who, mocking Him as silent, as if He were a fool, sent Him back to Pilate clothed in a white garment — and by this deed reconciled to himself Pilate, who beforehand had been his enemy because of a quarrel that had arisen over the bounds of jurisdiction. For "white garment," the Greek is λαμπρά, that is, bright, white, splendid; for whiteness shines, and in turn brightness gleams white. Therefore Herod clothed Christ in a white garment because this garment was, first, that of those seeking magistracies, whence they were called "Candidati"; second, the same was that of princes; third, the same was that of clowns and fools. Therefore by this garment Herod reproached Christ's foolish ambition, namely that He had foolishly and out of stupidity aspired to and sought after the kingdom of Judea.
Symbolically: the white garment represented Christ's innocence, purity, virginity, victory, immortality, glory, etc., which by this passion and mockery He merited and acquired. For the white garment was the symbol of these things, as I showed at Ecclesiastes 9:8, on the words: "At all times let thy garments be white." Whence Saint Ambrose, on Luke chapter 23: "He is clothed in white," he says, "giving the marks of an immaculate passion, that the Lamb of God without stain should take upon Himself the sins of the world."
Now Pilate, seeing Jesus sent back to him from Herod, in order to release Him, said to the chief priests, as Luke records in chapter 23, verse 14: "You have presented unto me this man as one that perverteth the people; and behold I, having examined him before you, find no cause in this man, in those things wherein you accuse him. No, nor Herod neither. For I sent you to him, and behold, nothing worthy of death is done to him. I will chastise him therefore, and release him." "Chastised," that is, punished and scourged — namely, that by this chastisement I may sate, not the guilt (which He did not commit), but your hatred against Him.
Soon Pilate found another way of releasing Jesus, and proposed it to the people, which Matthew here recounts in verse 15, namely that, since at Passover he was customarily about to release some condemned man, he would set Jesus alongside Barabbas the robber, hoping and scarcely doubting that the Jews would ask Jesus — who had healed so many of their sick and bestowed such great benefits on them — to be released, but that Barabbas should be condemned. Whence he says: "Upon the solemn day," namely the present day of Passover, as John has in 18:39, "the governor was accustomed to release to the people one prisoner whom they would." This custom was once introduced among the Jews in memory of Israel's deliverance from the Egyptian captivity through Moses, Exodus 14.
You will ask whether Pilate truly wished to release Christ? Rupertus denies it and thinks that Pilate, like a fox, pretended to wish to free Jesus, but secretly colluded with the Jews to destroy Him: "Because," he says, "he himself placed Jesus in the judgment of the envious Jews." But far better Saint Augustine and all the others judge that Pilate sincerely and seriously wished to release Jesus. For Luke explicitly has it in chapter 23, verse 20; and Saint Peter, Acts chapter 3: "You denied Jesus," he says, "before the face of Pilate, when he had judged him to be released." The same is clear from all the methods and attempts by which Pilate strove to save Christ's life. The first attempt was that, when the chief priests laid before Pilate their authority and judgment, by which together with Caiaphas the high priest they had condemned Jesus, and demanded Him for death, he himself did not acquiesce, but wished to know His case, and to hear and judge the crimes of which they accused Him, John 18:31. The second attempt was that, when the chief priests objected many crimes against Jesus, and especially the aspiring to the Jewish kingdom, he did not believe them, especially since he had heard from Jesus that His kingdom was not of this world; whence he openly declared that he found no cause of death in Jesus. The third was that he sent Jesus to Herod, and when He had been sent back to him, declared Him innocent both by his own testimony and by Herod's. The fourth was that he set Him alongside Barabbas, hoping that the Jews would rather free Jesus than Barabbas. Whence Matthew adds:
Verse 16: He Had Then a Notorious Prisoner, Who Was Called Barabbas
Notorious, namely for crime and infamy — in Greek ἐπίσημον, that is, famous, namely well-known for his wickedness, says Euthymius. John calls him a "robber"; Mark, "one who was bound with seditious men, who in the sedition had committed a murder"; Luke, "who, for a certain sedition made in the city, and for a murder, was cast into prison." Whence Chrysostom calls him "famous in his audacity, and stained with many murders." Great was this infamy and torment of Jesus, that He, innocent and holy, indeed the Holy of Holies, who had given life to so many sick and dead, and was the Author of eternal life to the elect, should see Himself set alongside and ranked below Barabbas, who was wicked, a murderer, and an author of death. Learn, O Christian, when you are set alongside and ranked below those less worthy — nay, even unworthy and wicked — to imitate the patience of Jesus, who suffered Himself to be ranked below Barabbas.
Barabbas. — In Hebrew it is the same as "bar abba," that is, son of the father — namely of the first Adam, who was the father of all sinful men, to whom Christ was set behind, when Christ took upon Himself his disobedience and guilt to expiate them, and therefore was condemned to death, that He might free Adam and his posterity from death. Less aptly Saint Jerome says: "Barabbas is called as it were 'bar rabba,'" that is, "son of the master." For thus "Barrabbas" would have to be said with a double r, but it is now said "Barabbas" with a single r.
Verse 17: Whom Will You That I Release to You, Barabbas, or Jesus That Is Called Christ?
"So that," says Druthmarus, "if the chief priests, on account of envy, wished to destroy Him, the people, who had experienced His many benefits, might ask that He live"; or certainly, if they were unwilling — as Chrysostom says — "at least, if not to absolve Him as innocent, they might bestow Him as a condemned man on the festival."
Who Is Called Christ. — That is, who is commonly held and called the Messiah. Pilate said this in earnest, to prick the Jews into asking that Jesus be freed, as if to say: "Jesus is your Messiah, promised to your fathers and to you; beware therefore that you do not punish Him with death."
Verse 18: For He Knew That for Envy They Had Delivered Him
Both because the chief priests by their shouting, countenance, and gesture breathed nothing but hatred and wrath against Christ; and because he had heard many things about the sanctity, doctrine, and liberty of Jesus, with which He had rebuked the vices of the chief priests.
Verse 19: His Wife Sent to Him, Saying: Have Thou Nothing to Do With That Just Man
This is a new attempt by Pilate's wife to free Christ. Pilate's wife, then, resting in bed about dawn, when her husband Pilate had already risen to attend to public affairs, had terrifying dreams, threatening her and her husband, if he should condemn the innocent and holy Jesus. Saint Cyprian (or whoever the author is), Sermon On the Passion; Saint Bernard, Sermon 1 De Paschate; Lyranus, Carthusianus, and Cajetanus think that these dreams were sent to her by the demon, who already recognized Jesus as Christ; and therefore, willing to prevent His death, lest through it men should be saved. Whence Rabanus: "The devil, understanding that he was about to lose his spoils through Christ, wills to free Him through a woman." Baronius and Barradius cite for the same opinion Saint Ignatius, Epistle 8 to Polycarp, and 5 to the Philippians, but I could find no such thing in Ignatius. But if the demon had wished to free Jesus, he would rather have bent the Jews and chief priests to favor and pity for Jesus, than the woman.
Wherefore more truly Origen, Saint Hilary, Jerome, Chrysostom, Euthymius, Theophylact, Jansenius, Maldonatus here, and Saint Augustine, Sermon 121 De Tempore, and Saint Ambrose, Book 10 on Luke, judge that this dream was sent to Pilate's wife by God through a holy angel, and this firstly, that Christ might receive testimony of His innocence from both sexes — namely, both from Pilate and from his wife — just as all the elements gave brilliant testimony of His innocence, which were stirred and shaken at His death. Secondly, because if this dream had been sent to Pilate, he would have kept it in his own mind, says Chrysostom. Therefore it is sent to the wife, that she might reveal and announce it to her husband Pilate at the tribunal, before the chief priests and Jews, so that they themselves might hear that Jesus was innocent. Thirdly, because this wife seems to have been an honest, merciful, and pious woman: whence Origen, Saint Chrysostom, Theophylact, and others suppose that she, through this dream, recognized that Jesus was the Messiah, the savior of the world, and believed in Him and was saved. Hear Saint Hilary, canon 33, here: "In her there is a figure of the Gentile people, which now faithful, calls the unbelieving people, with whom it dwelt, to the faith of Christ. Because she herself has suffered much for Christ, she invites him to the same glory of the hope to come." Likewise also Ambrose, Book 10 on Luke 23: "The wife admonished," he says, "but moved by whom? Grace was shining in the night, the divinity was prominent, yet she did not thus restrain him from the sacrilegious sentence." Nor does Saint Augustine, cited by Saint Thomas in the Catena Aurea, dissent, while he teaches that both spouses, by God's working, publicly bore testimony for Christ: for he indeed cried out: "He has done nothing evil"; she on the other hand: "Have nothing to do with that just man"; which, as Saint Jerome also testifies, was a presage of the faith of the Gentile people. The same Saint Augustine in Sermon 121 De Tempore: "At the birth of the world," he says, "the wife led the husband to death" — namely, Eve led Adam; "in the passion of Christ, the wife calls him to salvation" — namely, Claudia called Pilate.
Wherefore Lucius Dexter in his Chronicle, in the year of Christ 34, number 2, has thus: "In the year of Christ 34, Christ, the savior of the world, is on trial before Pilate; Claudia Procula, Pilate's wife, warned through a dream, believes in Christ and obtains salvation." In a similar way, among the other women who ministered out of their own resources to Jesus as He preached, was Joanna, wife of Chuza, Herod's steward — who despised Christ and mocked Him by clothing Him in a white garment.
The Gospel of Nicodemus supports this — which, although apocryphal, nevertheless contains many true and creditable things. For in it we read thus: "Now when Pilate was considering what he should do about Jesus, his wife, named Procula, sent to him, saying: Have nothing to do with that just man, for I have suffered many things this day in dreams because of him. The Jews replying said to Pilate: Did we not say that he is a sorcerer? Behold, he has sent a dream to your wife." Finally, the Greek Menologium ascribes Procula, Pilate's wife, to the catalogue of Saints. Vincent of Beauvais cites this, Book VII of the Speculum historiale, chapter 41. Nicephorus also names Procula as Pilate's wife, Book I, chapter 30. Perhaps this Claudia Procula, Pilate's wife, is that Claudia whom Paul mentions in 2 Timothy 4: "Eubulus and Pudens, Linus, and Claudia salute thee." For in her there agree the name, the time, the religion, and the place; for this epistle was written in the city where it is likely that Pilate's wife remained when he himself was driven into exile at Lyons, and that, on account of the disparity of religion, she did not accompany him.
Finally, that Pilate too was converted to the faith of Christ through his wife is hinted at by St. Augustine, Sermon 3 On the Epiphany, in these words: "The Magi had come from the East, Pilate from the West. Whence the former bore witness to Him in His rising, that is, in His birth; while the latter bore witness in His setting, that is, in His dying — both bore witness to the King of the Jews, that with Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob they might recline in the kingdom of heaven, not as propagated from them in the flesh, but as engrafted into them by faith," etc. Tertullian, Apology, ch. 21: "Pilate himself, by then a Christian in his own conscience, reported all these things concerning Christ to Tiberius Caesar then reigning," etc.
But these reports are very ambiguous, symbolic, obscure, and uncertain, and they disagree with what others narrate about Pilate's unhappy death. For Josephus, in Antiquities Book XVIII, ch. 5, writes that Pilate, some years afterwards, was sent to Rome by Vitellius, governor of Syria, to answer before Caesar to the charges brought against him by the Jews. Since he was unable to do this, he was stripped of all honor, banished to Vienne in Gaul, and, running himself through with his own hand, killed himself. He sought a swift death as a brief escape from many evils, says Ado in his Chronicle (who was bishop of that same Vienne), and he took this from Paulus Orosius, Book VII, ch. 5. Eusebius and Cassiodorus in the Chronicle have the same. So too Baronius and others throughout.
When therefore St. Augustine and Tertullian call Pilate a Christian, understand a Christian in the sense of a supporter and defender of Christ, because he protected His innocence until, overcome by the naming and threats of Caesar, he condemned Him. Hence he did not believe in Him, but rather handed Him over to death as a false Christ — which was a vast crime and the killing of Christ. Wherefore, by the just judgment of God, Pilate was punished by retaliation in kind: just as he himself condemned the innocent Christ on the basis of false charges by the Jews, so in turn he himself, on the basis of false charges by those same Jews, was condemned by Caius Caesar and driven into exile.
Verse 20: The Chief Priests and Elders Persuaded the People That They Should Ask Barabbas
Pilate gave the people time to deliberate whether they wanted Jesus or Barabbas to be released; meanwhile his wife sent to Pilate, telling him: "Have nothing to do with that just man." During this interval the chief priests, by themselves and through their followers and ministers, persuaded the people to ask rather for Barabbas than for Jesus, as though Jesus were more seditious and harmful to the commonwealth, on account of His supposed claim to the kingdom of Judaea, than Barabbas was. See here what anger and envy do, and how false and perverse the world's judgments are: it judges Jesus, the Author of salvation, to be the author of death and so to be punished with death; while it judges Barabbas, the author of murder, to be better than Jesus and so to be granted his life. Indeed, these things were happening by the will of God, that the innocent Christ should suffer, and so deliver from death the guilty and sinners whom Barabbas represented.
Verse 21: Which of the Two Will You Have Released to You? They Said: Barabbas
Answering, that is, after a sufficient interval of deliberation had been given to the Jews, asking again and demanding an answer from them.
Venerable Bede speaks well on Mark 15:9: "To this day," he says, "the petition which the Jews obtained with such great effort still clings to them. For because, when given the choice, they chose a robber instead of Jesus, a murderer instead of the Savior, a destroyer instead of the giver of life, they have deservedly lost both salvation and life, and have given themselves up so far to robberies and seditions that they have lost both their fatherland and their kingdom — which they loved more than Christ — and to this day they have not been able to recover that liberty, whether of body or of soul, which they sold."
Allegorically: this choice of Barabbas and rejection of Christ, says St. Jerome, prefigured Antichrist the robber, who at the end of the world will be chosen by the Jews after they have rejected Christ. And St. Ambrose, on Luke 22, says: "Barabbas in Latin is called the son of the father. Those then to whom it is said, 'You are of your father the devil,' are shown to be those who will prefer to the true Son of God the son of their father, the antichrist."
Verse 22: What Shall I Do Then With Jesus That Is Called Christ? They All Say: Let Him Be Crucified
Pilate, says St. Chrysostom, "places the matter in their power, so that the whole of His clemency may be attributed to them, thus seeking to win them over and mollify them by deference, but in vain. For the chief priests had already determined in their council to press for His crucifixion, both because the cross was the most savage form of punishment and the highest in suffering, and because the cross was the most shameful, being the punishment of robbers, seditious men, and tyrants who attempt to seize a kingdom — so that by this disgrace they might wipe out and destroy all the past renown and glory of Christ." Thus St. Chrysostom: "Why," he says, "were they so eager for this manner of death? Because it was ignominious: fearing therefore that His memory might afterwards be preserved, they chose this shameful death, not knowing that, when truth is hindered, it appears all the more."
Verse 23: Why, What Evil Hath He Done? But They Cried Out the More, Saying: Let Him Be Crucified
When Pilate insisted again and again, urging Jesus' innocence so that he might release Him, the Jews insisted with louder shouting (in Greek περισσῶς, that is, more vehemently, says Euthymius) that He be crucified, "not laying aside, but increasing their anger, animosity, and blasphemy," says Origen. The Jews here fulfilled against Christ that passage of Jeremiah, ch. 12: "My inheritance has become to Me (namely the Synagogue) like a lion in the forest; they have raised their voice against Me." And that of David concerning Christ, Psalm 21: "They have opened their mouth against Me, like a ravening lion and roaring." And that of Isaiah 5:7: "I looked for Him to do judgment, and behold iniquity; and justice, and behold a cry." So St. Jerome.
Verse 24: Pilate Took Water and Washed His Hands Before the People: I Am Innocent of the Blood of This Just Man
He washed, in Greek ἀπενίψατο, that is, he washed off. "He used a Jewish custom," says Origen, "wishing to satisfy them concerning Christ's innocence not only by words but also by the very deed itself." Pilate washed his hands, but not his conscience. Moreover, this washing by Pilate took place later — namely, after the flagellation and crowning of Christ — as is clear from John. So this is a hysterologia (a putting-after of what happened earlier).
I am innocent. — As if to say: I, unwilling and compelled by you, O Jews, condemn Christ; I therefore am innocent, but you are guilty and answerable for His death. But this the timid, witless, hare-hearted, and cowardly governor says foolishly. For why, O Pilate, do you not resist a wicked people? "Do not seek to be made a judge, unless you have the strength to break through iniquities," says Ecclesiasticus 7:6. On other occasions you suppressed a rioting populace by sending in soldiers with cudgels, as Josephus testifies, Book XVIII, ch. 4 or 5; why do you not do the same now? If you cannot release Jesus on account of the raging mob, at least delay the sentence, postpone it, weave in delays, until that fury subsides.
Wherefore St. Chrysostom, and after him Titus of Bostra, on Luke 23:22: "Although," he says, "he washed his hands and declared himself innocent, that concession was nevertheless soft and not very manly, and he carried it out most cravenly: for he ought by no means to have handed Him over to them, but rather should have rescued Him, as the tribune later did Paul," Acts 21:33. More vigorously St. Augustine, Sermon 118 On the Season: "Although Pilate may have washed his hands, he did not wash away his deeds: even though he supposed he had wiped the blood of the just one off his limbs, his mind was still held stained with that same blood; for he killed Christ who handed Him over to be killed. For a good and steadfast judge, lest he should sentence the blood of an innocent man, ought neither to give way to envy nor to fear." And St. Leo, Sermon 8 On the Passion: "Pilate," he says, "did not escape guilt, who, cooperating with the seditious, abandoned his own judgment and crossed over into another's crime."
Verse 25: His Blood Be Upon Us and Upon Our Children
As if to say: Let the guilt, as well as the avenging, of Jesus' blood — which you, O Pilate, fear to shed — be transferred from you, by God the avenger, upon us and upon our children, so that, if any guilt there be in this, we with our descendants will pay for it: for we acknowledge none, and accordingly we fear no vengeance; therefore we boldly call it down upon ourselves. So those blind and raging men subjected not only themselves but also their children to God's vengeance — which accordingly they have felt, heavy and harsh, for sixteen hundred years down to the present day, so that after the destruction of the nation and of Jerusalem, without a city, without a temple, without sacrifice, without a high priest, without a prince, they wander throughout the whole world and serve the rulers of all the nations.
Wherefore, as a punishment for the crucified Christ, Titus, while besieging Jerusalem — when the Jews on account of famine were going out in throngs to seek food — daily ordered five hundred and more to be crucified, "so that at last there were not enough places for the crosses, nor crosses for the bodies," says Josephus, Jewish War Book VI, ch. 12. "There remains," says St. Jerome, "down to the present day this curse upon the Jews, and the blood of the Lord is not taken away from them"; for, as Daniel foretold, ch. 9:27, "the desolation will continue until the consummation and the end."
Note: Hugh Cardinalis, writing on Psalm 77:66, on the words "He struck His enemies in the hindparts, He gave them an everlasting reproach," reports from certain authors that the Jews bear this reproach to this day, in that, in vengeance for the Lord's passion, they suffer hemorrhoids or a flow of blood, and on that account are pallid. St. Vincent adds, in his sermon on Good Friday, that as a sign of that imprecation "His blood be upon us," when their male children are born, they have their right hand full of blood, pressed against the head. Some confirm this by the example of Zarah, who was born with a red thread tied to his finger. Others add that on Good Friday itself they regularly suffer a flow of blood and on that day all turn pale. Some say they suffer the same thing at every full moon, and on that account are mostly endowed with a sickly complexion. Salmeron mentions these things, rightly noting that they do not seem to be supported by solid testimony from history. The Abulensian (Tostatus) says that he reckons this to be false, although some men of authority assert it; that the occasion of the error is that the Hebrews are more liable to the disease of hemorrhoids — that is, when the heads of the veins terminating at the anus swell and are filled with a thick bloody humor, which arises from the indigestion of bland and poorly digestible meats, on which the Hebrews especially feed more than other peoples, such as buffalo at Rome. So says the Abulensian on 1 Kings 5, Questions 15 and 16, at the end, and from him Lorinus on Psalm 77.
Verse 26: Then He Released to Them Barabbas, and Having Scourged Jesus, Delivered Him to Be Crucified
"Having scourged," in Greek φραγελλώσας, that is, after he had scourged Him. Matthew touches on the scourging of Christ briefly, in his usual manner, in a single word. Luke and John narrate the sequence of events more fully; from them it is clear that Pilate, seeing that his fourth attempt to free Jesus by comparing Him with Barabbas had not succeeded, added a fifth and sharper one — namely the scourging of Christ — so that by its harshness he might bend the Jewish minds, raging with hatred of Christ, to compassion, that they might grant Jesus His life. He therefore said to the Jews: "I find no cause of death in Him: I will therefore chastise Him and let Him go," as Luke has it, ch. 23:22. And immediately afterward he had Him scourged.
Note first, that scourging among the Romans was a vile punishment of slaves, just as cudgeling was for free men, as is clear from the Digest, On Punishments, the law of slaves. The same is clear from the Lex Porcia and Lex Sempronia. Hence martyrs were scourged for their disgrace. Whence Paul, after he was scourged, in Acts 16, gravely protests, saying: "They have publicly beaten us, who are uncondemned and Roman citizens, and have cast us into prison," etc. So too in the Acts of certain martyrs we read: "Let the martyr be flogged on the shoulders, or scourged with rods," that is, let him be beaten in the manner of children, like a foolish boy (as little ones are usually beaten by schoolmasters). Hence Prudentius, in the hymn on St. Romanus: "Let them, he says, lift him aloft and beat his buttocks with the hand, and then, with his garment removed, lash him with rods." Thus St. Thomas the Bishop was beaten with rods to disgrace him, as Victor of Utica testifies, Vandal History Book I; and St. Afra, as her acts edited by Velser have it, was beaten catomis — that is, with whips on the shoulders (for ὦμοι are the shoulders or shoulderblades), what we commonly call "to give it to the shoulders," in Greek κατὰ τῶν ὤμων, whence catomus. So Homer, Iliad Book Ψ, says that Tydides whipped the horses κατωμάδιον, that is, along the shoulders or arms. Or rather, to be catomatum is the same as to be lifted onto another's shoulders so that, after the manner of children, one is beaten on the buttocks; for κατωμίζω is the same as "I lift onto the shoulders," and κατωμάδιος is one who is carried on the shoulders, or hangs from the shoulders. So Baronius in his Notes on the Martyrology, 13 June, and he proves it from Suidas, Hippocrates, and Josephus. So we read of the boy St. Vitus, and of the maiden St. Eulalia, thirteen years old, and of St. Barida and others, that they were catomata — that is, scourged in the manner of children.
Secondly, those who were condemned to death, even if free men — having been made vile and as it were slaves by their condemnation — were scourged. For this reason lictors used to carry before the Roman consuls and governors bundles of rods bound to an axe, that with these they might scourge the condemned with the rods and afterwards cut off their heads with the axe.
Thirdly, Christ was scourged by Pilate not after He had been condemned by him to death, as a means to crucifixion and death, but beforehand, namely so that Pilate might soften the savage Jewish minds by the savagery of the scourging and might dismiss Him as one chastened. This scourging, however, did not bring it about that Christ was scourged again in the Roman manner after His condemnation. For that Christ was scourged not twice, as some hold, but only once is clear if one compares Matthew and Mark with John. For all speak of one and the same scourging of Christ.
Fourthly, St. Jerome in the Epitaph for Paula; St. Paulinus, Epistle 34; Prudentius and other ancient writers, whom our Jacobus Gretser cites in De Cruce Book I, testify that Christ, in order to be scourged, was bound to a column (Calvin therefore wrongly mocks this), which Bede calls of marble, and which, having afterwards been brought to Rome, is to be seen in the church of St. Praxedis. It is low, three palms in height, lest, if it were higher, it should have hindered the scourgers from being able to scourge Christ on both sides — that is, in front as well as behind, on the chest as well as on the back. Jacobus Bosius, De Cruce Triumphante Book I, ch. 13, and Daniel Mallonius, On the Marks of the Holy Shroud, p. 65, depict in an image and have one contemplate the manner in which Christ was bound by the arms and hands to the column and scourged. Hear St. Jerome here: "Jesus was handed over to the soldiers to be beaten, and that most sacred body, that breast which contained God, the scourges tore. This was done so that, since it was written, 'Many are the scourges of sinners,' we, by His being scourged, might be freed from blows — Scripture saying to the just man: 'No scourge shall come near your tent.'" Now, the Roman column is small; whence some, with Panciroli, think that it is not the whole column but only a part — namely the base or capital. For this column appears to have been huge, since, as St. Jerome says in the Epitaph for St. Paula, it supported the portico of a church: "There was shown to her," he says, "the column supporting the portico of the church, stained with the blood of the Lord, to which He is said to have been bound and scourged." Bosius, however, in his book De Cruce, holds that the column at St. Praxedis is not a part but the whole; and that St. Jerome speaks of another column, at which Christ was first scourged — for St. Chrysostom indicates that He was scourged twice. The inscription on the column at St. Praxedis at Rome also asserts that there was another. Baronius is silent on this and conceals it. Furthermore, Prudentius in his Hymn agrees with St. Jerome. Likewise the columns to which SS. Peter and Paul were bound and scourged in the customary manner before their execution are tall and equal or surpass the height of a man. They are still to be seen at Rome with the Carmelites in the church of St. Maria Transpontina. Wherefore it seems we must say that this smaller column in the church of St. Praxedis is a part or appendix of the greater one, which St. Jerome and Prudentius name; or at any rate that one of them is the one to which Christ was bound by night in the house of Caiaphas, where He was insolently mocked by the high priests' servants, and struck with slaps and blows of the fist — perhaps also scourged with rods, sticks, or thongs; and that the other is the one to which He was scourged by day in the praetorium of Pilate, as many contemplatives believe, on the testimony of Joannes Severanus, On the Seven Basilicas of Rome, on the church of St. Praxedis.
You will ask: how dreadful and savage was this scourging of Christ? I answer: first, it can be estimated from the fact that Christ, as I have already said, was bound to a low column, so that, towering over it with His whole body, He was wholly at the disposal of the scourgers. Add to this that the very stripping naked of Christ's virginal and most chaste body before obscene jesters, mockers, and buffoons must have been an enormous affliction for Him. Christ was stripped twice, or, as others say, three times: namely first, for the scourging; secondly, as some say, for the crowning, and that with the greatest pain — for His garment, clinging to the wounds of the scourges and as it were glued to them, had to be torn off forcibly with a renewal of the wounds; thirdly, for the crucifixion. Wherefore the forty Martyrs, condemned to a freezing pool, animated by this consideration and example of Christ stripped naked, eagerly stripped themselves of their garments and leaped into the pool. For these were their words, says St. Basil in his homily On the 40 Martyrs: "What worthy thanks shall we return to the Lord, who for our sake was stripped? What great thing is it for a servant to undergo what the Lord has suffered? We were the cause why His garment was taken from Him — far more than the boldness of the soldiers, who tore it apart and cast lots for it. Hard indeed is the cold, but sweet is paradise; afflicting is the ice, but delightful is the rest. Bearing it for a short time, the bosom of Abraham will cherish us forever. Let the foot be burned with cold, that with the angels it may dance forever. We shall exchange one night for an everlasting age. Let the hand grow numb with cold, that it may have the power to lift itself up to God."
Secondly, from the fact that Pilate by this scourging wished to give satisfaction for all the charges brought against Christ and for the insatiable hatred of the Jews against Christ, and to bend them to compassion for Christ, saying: "Behold the Man" — as if to say: He has now no longer the appearance of a man, but of a sheep or ox slaughtered, His whole body bloodied and disfigured.
Thirdly, from the wantonness of the soldiers — and indeed of many of them — which was so great that, without any command from Pilate, they themselves of their own accord and out of impudence crowned Christ with thorns. Perhaps the Jews even bribed them with money so that they should rage more sharply in beating Christ. The Blessed Magdalen of Pazzi, a Florentine nun famed for sanctity and revelations, knew in ecstasy that Christ was scourged by thirty pairs of men — that is, by sixty servants — fresh and new ones taking turns one after another. So her Life has it, Part VI, p. 532: which, if taken simply at the sound of the words, are wondrous and horrifying. Some hand down that there were inflicted on Christ in this scourging five thousand strokes: for it is said to have been revealed to St. Bridget that wounds to the number of 5,475 were inflicted on Christ in His whole passion; and by far the greatest part of these wounds were inflicted on Him from the scourging. Naturally, from so many blows Christ ought to have died over and over; but His divinity sustained His flesh, that He might suffer more and at last be crucified. The number, however, is uncertain, and is variously assigned by various writers.
Fourthly, from the constitution of Christ, which was the best, most delicate, and of most acute sensation and touch, as having been formed by the Holy Spirit: wherefore Christ felt the blows of the scourges far more than we would feel them.
Fifthly, because the Prophets, as also Christ Himself, foretold this scourging as heavy and bitter, as is clear from Matt. 20:19; Job 16:15: "He has cut me, He says, with wound upon wound," as if to say: They added blows to blows, wounds to wounds, so that His whole cut-up body seemed to be one continuous wound. Psalm 72:14: "And I have been scourged all the day." And Psalm 128:3: "Upon my back the sinners have built," that is, as if smiths they have hammered upon my back as on an anvil. The Hebrew is חרשו charescu, which can be translated, "the plowmen have plowed my back" — that is, with scourges they have drawn furrows on my back, as furrows are drawn in a field with a plow. Hence Aquila and Theodoret render: "They have drawn out, or lengthened out, their furrow." The same is indicated by that saying of Jacob in Genesis 49:11: "He shall wash His robe in wine, and His garment in the blood of the grape" — by the robe and the garment representing His flesh, and by the wine His blood, says Tertullian, Against Marcion Book IV.
Sixthly, because Christ was beaten with scourges — that is, with cords or thongs — in the manner of slaves. Paulus a Palatio adds here (the responsibility for the report rests with him) that it has been handed down by very weighty authors that Christ was scourged: first with rods of thorns; secondly with cords with iron points; thirdly with hooked chains. For scourges in former times were of many kinds; namely thongs or straps cut out of leather, lashes, cudgels, rods of birch, elm, willow, oak, and vine; sinews, plumbatae (lead-tipped whips), and scorpiones, as Antonius Gallonius shows, On the Tortures of the Martyrs, ch. 4. Now, what scorpiones are St. Isidore explains in his Etymologies Book VI, last chapter, saying: "Rods are the slender ends of branches and trees: if smooth, it is a rod; but if knotty or thorny, it is most properly called a scorpion, because it is inflicted on the body with a curved wound."
Lastly, St. Bridget hands down that the Blessed Virgin was present at the scourging of Christ, whose grief and sorrow wondrously increased the suffering of Christ. Now, St. Bridget describes the manner and savagery of Christ's scourging, as revealed by the Blessed Virgin, in this way, Revelations Book I, ch. 10: "Then, having been led to the column, He stripped Himself of His garments in His own person. In His own person He laid His hands on the column, which His enemies bound without any mercy. When He had been bound, He had absolutely nothing to cover Him, but as He was born, so He stood and bore the shame of His nakedness. Then His enemies rose up, who, while His friends had fled, stood about Him on every side and scourged His body, which was clean from every stain and sin. At the first stroke, then, I, who was standing nearby, fell as though dead; and when I had recovered my spirit, I saw His body beaten and scourged down to the ribs, so that His ribs were visible. And what was bitterer still, when the scourges were drawn back, His flesh was furrowed by the scourges themselves. And when My Son stood entirely bloody, entirely so torn that no soundness could be found in Him, nor anything left to scourge," etc. And Book IV, ch. 70: "Then, at the lictor's command, He stripped Himself of His garments, embraced the column of His own accord, was bound with a rope, and was lacerated by spiked scourges that, with their points fixed in and drawn back not by being torn out but by furrowing, tore His whole body. At the first stroke, then, I, as if struck to the heart, was carried away from my senses, and after a time, on coming to, I saw His body torn; for He was naked over His whole body when He was being scourged."
The reason a priori was that Christ wished by this scourging to atone and expiate for our pleasures, our concupiscences, and all our crimes, which were both very many and very grave: in which matter, says St. Thomas, Part III, Question 46, Article 6, ad 6, "He attended not only to how much power His suffering would have from the divinity united to it, but also to how much His suffering, according to His human nature, would suffice for so great a satisfaction." Moreover, He wished to merit for all the Martyrs strength and vigor for bravely enduring scourgings of every kind. Hence Isaiah says of Him, ch. 53:5: "There is no beauty in Him nor comeliness." And: "We have seen Him, and there was no comeliness, etc., a man of sorrows and acquainted with infirmity, etc., and we esteemed Him as it were a leper, and one struck by God and humbled."
Now in all these things Christ showed an astonishing and divine patience, fortitude, and constancy of mind, so that He neither uttered a groan, nor gave any sign of pain, but stood like an immovable rock; nay rather, He subjected to Himself all the blows and all the pains as though He were the king of pains, and dominated them, and ruled them with an exalted spirit. Whence a certain pagan writer, marveling at this, exclaimed: "O man unbroken in spirit, who poured forth neither prayer nor tear!" Hence St. Laurence Justinian, On the Triumphal Combat, ch. 14: "He stood," he says, "like an undismayed giant, and bore the punishment of the crowning with unaltered mind."
Whence St. Cyprian, On the Good of Patience: "Among the other admirable virtues by which He set forth proofs of His divine majesty, He preserved also the Father's patience by the tenor of His endurance." And Tertullian, On Patience, ch. 3: "He who," he says, "had set out to lie hidden in the figure of a man, imitated nothing of human impatience. Hence above all, you Pharisees, you ought to have acknowledged Him as Lord: such patience as this no man could have carried through." And St. Ambrose, Sermon 17 on Psalm 118: "Christ," he says, "when He was assailed by calumnies, presented a triumphal silence." Wherefore from this more-than-human and divine patience the Jews ought to have concluded that Christ was a divine man, indeed God, as the Centurion concluded when he said: "Truly this was the Son of God."
Love of God and of men brought this about. For love overcame pain, and in comparison with His love every pain was slight to Him. Hence Christ willed to suffer in all things and in all His members and senses. For, as St. Thomas says, Part III, Question 46, Article 5, in the body of the article: "Christ suffered in His friends, who deserted Him; in His reputation, through the blasphemies uttered against Him; in His honor and glory, through the mockeries and insults inflicted on Him; in His possessions, in that He was even stripped of His garments; in His soul, through sorrow, weariness, and fear; in His body, through wounds and scourges. Thirdly, it can be considered with respect to the members of His body. For Christ suffered in His head from the crown of piercing thorns, in His hands and feet from the fastening of nails, in His face from slaps and spittings, and in His whole body from scourges. He also suffered according to every bodily sense: according to touch, indeed, in being scourged and pierced with nails; according to taste, in being given gall and vinegar to drink; according to smell, in being hung on a gibbet in a foul-smelling place of dead corpses (which is called Calvary); according to hearing, in being assailed by the voices of those blaspheming and mocking Him; according to sight, in seeing His mother and the disciple whom He loved weeping." Far greater, however, were the sorrows of mind in Christ, especially the compunction for all the sins of every individual man, and the sorrow over the multitude of the damned; in addition to these, His compassion for the Martyrs and other faithful who were to suffer hard things, as I said in ch. 26:38. To undergo all these sorrows, an immense love drove Christ on. For the measure of pain is love, because one does not live in love without pain. Hence that line about the suffering Christ: "Do you see how love is sculpted upon His whole body?"
He Delivered Him to Them to Be Crucified. — Namely after the scourging and the crowning, which follows, as I have said. So this is again a hysterologia (an inversion of the order of events). For Matthew here touches briefly on many things which John narrates fully in ch. 19, from verse 1 to verse 16.
Now, Pilate "handed over" Jesus to the Jews, in the manner of a judge condemning Him by sentence to the death of the cross. The sentence of Pilate, taken from ancient annals — as Adrichomius reports in his Description of Jerusalem, p. 163 — was this: "Jesus the Nazarene, the subverter of the nation, the despiser of Caesar, and the false Messiah, as has been proved by the testimony of the elders of His own nation: lead Him to the common place of execution, and with mockery of His royal majesty, fix Him to a cross between two robbers. Go, lictor, prepare the crosses." Note here the words "as has been proved by the testimony of the elders of His own nation": for with this Pilate cast over his condemnation of Christ before Caesar and the Romans a kind of veil of his own cowardice and injustice — namely, that the priests had attested that Jesus was a false Christ, although he himself knew the contrary. He wrongly therefore says "has been proved": for the priests did not prove it, but only asserted it, and that falsely and through calumny.
Wherefore Pilate, rendering an account of his governorship by letter to Tiberius Caesar in the customary manner, among other things writes that he crucified Jesus on account of the importunity of the Jews, but that He was otherwise a holy and divine man. Hear Paulus Orosius, Histories Book VII, ch. 4: "Pilate reported to the Emperor Tiberius concerning the Passion and Resurrection of Christ and the consequent miracles, which had either been performed openly by Him in person or were being done by His disciples in His name; and concerning the fact that, with the faith of very many men growing in eager rivalry, He was being believed to be God." Hear also Eusebius in the Chronicle, A.D. 38: "When Pilate reported about the doctrine of the Christians to Tiberius, Tiberius referred the matter to the Senate, that He might be received among the other gods. But when, by a decree of the Fathers, it had been resolved that the Christians should be banished from the city, Tiberius by edict threatened the accusers of the Christians with death." So Tertullian writes in his Apology, chs. 5 and 21; Eusebius also, History Book II, ch. 2; Nicephorus, Book II, ch. 8; Orosius, Book VII, ch. 4; Gregory of Tours, History Book I, ch. 24; Regino and Hermannus Contractus in their Chronicles, and the Compiler of Chronicles in his own, Ado of Vienne, and others.
Therefore, by the testimony of His own judge Pilate, in this most wicked judgment of his, Christ our God was condemned by him — in whom envy openly accused, hatred bore witness, innocence was the charge, fear corrupted, ambition condemned, and cruelty inflicted the punishment.
Verse 27: Then the Soldiers of the Governor Taking Jesus Into the Praetorium, Gathered the Whole Cohort
Refer the "then" not to "delivered Him to be crucified," for these things took place before the condemnation and handing over of Christ, as I have said; but to "scourged," in Greek φραγελλώσας, that is, "when He had scourged Him." As if to say: the soldiers, scourging Jesus, then immediately crowned Him with thorns at the same time.
They Gathered. — That they might adorn and salute Him, as if He were a sham, painted king of the Jews, with regal insignia by way of mockery. For it is a cruel kind of men, this kind of soldiers, who take pleasure in insults, says Chrysostom.
The Cohort. — A cohort was the tenth part of a legion, containing 1,250 soldiers, or, as others say, only 500. See what was said in ch. 26:53. This cohort was the Praetorian one, which surrounded the praetor Pilate and protected him against the fury of the populace and the snares of enemies. Wherefore this cohort was in the citadel Antonia, which was midway between the praetorium and the temple, so that, if a tumult arose in either place, it might at once run up and suppress it.
Verse 28: And Having Stripped Him, They Put a Scarlet Cloak About Him
"Making Jesus a plaything for themselves," says Origen.
Stripping. — In Greek ἐκδύσαντες, that is, "when they had stripped": which can be referred either to Christ's scourging or to His crowning. As if to say: When they had stripped Jesus to scourge Him, then, the scourging being finished, they cast about Him a scarlet cloak. It is uncertain, then, whether Christ after the scourging resumed His garments, of which He was afterwards again stripped, in order that the scarlet cloak might be cast over Him; or whether after the scourging they immediately put this cloak on Him while still naked. Hence consequently it is uncertain whether Christ was stripped of His garments three times, or only twice, as I have said.
Symbolically St. Jerome: "In the scarlet cloak," he says, "the Lord supports the bloody works of the Gentiles." And St. Athanasius: "He bore," he says, "in the scarlet cloak the appearance of the blood by which the earth had been polluted by the devil and stained with many waves of gore." And Origen: "Receiving," he says, "the scarlet cloak, the Lord took upon Himself the blood of the world" — that is, sins, which are bloody and red like scarlet: for God "laid upon Him the iniquity of us all."
Anagogically St. Gregory: "For what is purple, but blood and the endurance of sufferings, displayed for love of the kingdom?" And again: "Our King made a purple ascent on the litter, because the kingdom which is seen within is reached through the tribulation of blood."
A Scarlet Cloak. — You will say: Mark and John call it purple. St. Ambrose, on Luke 23, replies that these were different garments, and that Christ was clothed in both. Better is the view of St. Athanasius, Sermon On the Cross and Passion; St. Augustine, Euthymius, Toletus, Barradius, Gretser in his De Cruce Book I, and others, who hold that it was the same garment, because the color scarlet is most similar to purple, whence it is sometimes called purple, as Lazarus Baifius teaches in De Re Vestiaria. Or this garment was dibapha, that is, twice-dyed — once with purple, that is with murex, and again with kermes (cocco): hence it could be called both purple and scarlet, for being thus twice-dyed it has a more vivid color. This kind, Lentulus Spinther is said to have been the first to put on during his aedileship, says Alexander ab Alexandro in his Geniales Dies Book V, ch. 18. So our Salazar, on Proverbs 21:22, no. 119.
This was the garment of kings, like which they here ironically and by way of mockery make Christ, as it were sneering at Him and laughing at Him, as if to say: "Look, you said you were the king of the Jews; take then this paltry mantle and this royal cloak." For of old such a cloak was a chlamys of purple; and the chlamys was a garment narrower and shorter than the pallium, which the soldiers used to wear over their armor. This chlamys, however, seems to have been the cheap and threadbare cloak of some Roman soldier, which, because it was purple, was the sign and dress of the Emperor. The chlamys was first used by Numa Pompilius, who succeeded Romulus in the kingship of Rome, on the testimony of Suidas, under the word Chlamys; and among the Macedonians no garment was more regal than the chlamys, says Plutarch in the Life of Eumenes. Hence Claudian, in De Raptu Proserpinae Book II, speaking of death, says: "Beneath your footsteps purple kings shall come." And Cassiodorus, Variae Book II, Letter 12: "The color of the purple," he says, "marks out the one who reigns, in that it makes him conspicuous, lest one should err concerning the appearance of the prince." And Trebellius Pollio, in Saturninus, the twenty-first tyrant, calls the purple an "imperial robe." And Silius says of Scipio: "But on the other side Scipio shone with burning scarlet." Hence symbolically St. Cyril, book XII on John, chap. v: "By the purple garment, he says, they hold that the kingdom of the whole world, which Christ was to receive through faith, was signified." The same is held by Origen, St. Ambrose, Augustine, Theophylact, Euthymius and the rest here. But this kingdom Christ gained for Himself by fighting and shedding His blood. For of old the Africans and other soldiers wore red garments in battle. The reason is given by Alexander ab Alexandro, book I, chap. x: "That by such a device, he says, the wounds and shed blood might not be noticed, and that they might fight more confidently and without fear. This was also the custom among the Persians, for Artaxerxes, about to lead his soldiers against Cyrus, arrayed them in a red cloak; and Agesilaus likewise so fitted out his troops with arms that all the bronze appeared crimson." Of the Chaldeans also you have it in Nahum II, 3: "The shield of his mighty men is made fiery, the men of the army are in scarlet."
Verse 29: Platting a Crown of Thorns, They Put It Upon His Head, and a Reed in His Right Hand
Christ, as a feigned king of the Jews, was crowned with thorns for mockery and for torment, by the insolence of the soldiers — Pilate not commanding but permitting it, so that by presenting Christ utterly disfigured to the compassion of the Jews, he might the more easily deliver Him from death. That these thorns were of the sea rush, whose points are like the longest and sharpest thorns, is the opinion of Toletus, Pererius and others, although Baronius denies it. But Bellonius contends they were of the buckthorn (rhamnus), and Gretser follows him in book I De Cruce, chap. xii. Perhaps in it the rush-thorns were interwoven with buckthorn-thorns. I myself saw at Rome two thorns of this thorny crown of Christ, which St. Helena brought from Jerusalem to Rome into the basilica of the Holy Cross: they are long and sharp like thick needles. St. Bridget, book I of her Revelations, chap. x, writes that it was revealed to her that this crown of thorns was again placed upon Christ on the cross, and that it reached to the middle of His forehead, and that so much blood flowed from the piercing of these thorns that it filled His eyes and ears, so that He could not look upon His Mother unless first, by pressing shut His eyelids, He squeezed out the blood from His eyes. That Christ was likewise crucified with the crown of thorns is shown by all His paintings, and is expressly taught by Origen and Tertullian, in his book Against the Jews, chap. xiii, and is suggested by Matthew in this chapter.
Atrocious was this ignominy of Christ, whereby they mocked Him as a feigned king with a crown of thorns; and likewise it was an immense torment, both because the thorns were very sharp and because they were driven into the head and the brain, in which is the fount and origin of all the nerves, muscles, senses and sensations. There, then, flourish sensation and touch, and there He intimately felt pains and prickings, even the slightest and smallest. For from the brain arise seven pairs of nerves (συζυγίαι) — that is, yokes or pairs — which are distributed throughout the whole body, so that one may feel and move oneself, as Andreas Vesalius, the prince of anatomists, teaches from Galen in book IV De Humani Corporis fabrica, chap. 1 and following, where he also teaches that the instrument of touch is the nerves; wherefore the brain is the principle of sensation and of voluntary motion, the seat of reason, the king of the members and of the inward parts, and for this reason placed in the highest citadel of the body. See the same author, book VII, chap. IV.
But hear St. Bridget briefly describing, from a revelation of the Blessed Virgin, the bitterness of Christ's crowning, in book I of her Revelations, chap. x: "When this was done, she says, they fitted the crown of thorns upon His head, which pierced the most venerable head of my Son so violently that His eyes were filled with the flowing blood, His ears were stopped up, and His whole beard was befouled with the running blood." And in book IV, chap. LXX: "And then the crown of thorns was most tightly pressed upon His head, reaching down to the middle of His forehead, with many streams of blood running down from the embedded points over His face, and filling His hair, eyes and beard, so that to me He seemed nothing but blood all over; nor could He Himself see me standing before the cross unless the blood were squeezed out by the pressing shut of His eyelids."
The literal reason for this crown of thorns was that the soldiers might mock and torment Christ as a false king of the Jews. For this crown, as Tertullian says in book IV Against Marcion, "lacerated and defiled the temples of Christ;" and, as St. Bernard says in his treatise On the Passion of the Lord, "wounded His beautiful head with a thousand prickings."
Origen gives the moral and mystical interpretation: "In this crown of thorns," he says, "the Lord takes upon Himself the thorns of our sins, woven into His head." "For the sting of sins," says St. Hilary, "is in thorns, out of which a crown of victory is woven for Christ." But hear Tertullian, in his book On the Soldier's Crown, near the end: "What kind of wreath, I beseech you, did Christ Jesus undergo for both sexes? Of thorns, I think, and of thistles, as a figure of the sins which the earth of the flesh produces for us: but the power of the cross took them all away, blunting all the stings of death in the endurance of the Lord's head. Surely besides the figure, the contumely is at hand, and the shame, and the disgrace, and the savagery interwoven with these, which at that time both befouled and lacerated the temples of the Lord." So he. For in the head sense of touch and all the other senses flourish. Whence Varro: "The head," he says, "is so called because from it the nerves take their beginning," through which all the senses and motions of life are distributed throughout the whole body. The thorns therefore, piercing the head of Christ, tormented Him with keen pain.
Tropologically: these thorns teach us to pierce and subdue the flesh with fasts, hairshirts and disciplines: "For it is not fitting," says St. Bernard, "that the members should be delicate under a head crowned with thorns." Hence Tertullian, in the book already cited, chap. xiv, teaches that Christians of old, out of reverence for the thorny crown of Christ, abstained from the crowns woven of flowers which the Gentiles used.
To St. Catherine of Siena Christ offered two crowns, one of thorns and the other of gems, giving her the option of choosing which she preferred, but on this condition: that if she chose one in this life, she would receive the other in its place in the life to come. At once she snatched the thorny crown from Christ's hand and drove it so forcibly onto her own head that she felt headaches for several days, and therefore she has now received in heaven the gemmed crown in place of the thorny one.
St. Agapitus the martyr, when he was only fifteen years old and had burning coals placed upon his head, remembering the thorny crown of Christ, cried out exultantly: "It is a small thing for the head to be burned on earth, which is to be crowned in heaven. How becomingly will the crown of glory adorn a head afflicted for Christ!" The same thought, whoever you are who suffer headaches, anguish, heaviness, annoyances, temptations and tribulations — consider that Christ shares with you one of the thorns of His thorny crown.
Anagogically: St. Ambrose, on Luke chap. xxiii: "The crown of thorns," he says, "which is placed upon the head of Christ, shows that a triumphal glory for God was being sought from the sinners of the world, as from the thorns of the age."
Symbolically: St. Bernard, On the Passion of the Lord, chap. xix: "Although," he says, "they crown Him in mockery, yet in ignorance and derision they confess Him to be a crowned king. Therefore He is shown to be their king, even by themselves unaware." And St. Augustine, tract 116 on John: "Thus," he says, "the kingdom that was not of this world, and which was conquering the proud world not by the ferocity of fighting but by the humility of suffering, bore the thorny crown and the purple garment — not illustrious in empire, but full of reproach."
Again: "The purple color," says Elias of Crete (in his commentary on the third oration of Nazianzen against Julian), "admonishes true Emperors to shed their blood with ready hearts for the safety of their subjects," even as Christ shed His. Hence the purple is given by the Pontiff to the Cardinals, to warn them to shed their blood for Christ and the Church when need arises, as I have said elsewhere. Wherefore St. Germanus, Patriarch of Constantinople, in his oration on the burial of Christ: "That purple," he says, "and the crown woven of thorns before the cross, confirmed the victory of Him who says: Be of good cheer, I have overcome the world and the prince of the world."
Excellently St. Athanasius, in his sermon On the Cross and the Passion: "When the Lord," he says, "was stripped and clothed in purple, by that very act a trophy was invisibly being raised against the devil. A new and incredible miracle, and without doubt the sign of a great victory: to Him whom they were striking in mockery and derision, they added the triumphal ornaments — the scarlet cloak and the crown of thorns. For this reason He went forth to death clothed in this kind of garment, to show that His victory over death was not in vain, but had been won for our salvation."
In the same place St. Athanasius teaches that Christ was crowned with thorns so that He might restore to us the tree of life, and so that, taking upon Himself our thorns — that is, our anxieties — He might heal them. For this reason Godfrey of Bouillon, when Jerusalem had been taken by the Christians and he himself was made her first Christian king, refused to be crowned with a royal crown, saying: "It does not become a Christian king to be adorned with a golden crown in that city in which Christ bore a crown of thorns," as William of Tyre and others report.
Finally, priests and monks represent this thorny crown of Christ, as the emblem of humility and contempt for the world, by their tonsure, which they wear on their heads in the shape of a crown. So Bede, book V of the History of the English, chap. xxii, and Germanus, Patriarch of Constantinople, in his Theoria of ecclesiastical matters. Anagogically: Tertullian, On the Soldier's Crown, chap. xiv: Put on the thorny crown of Christ, "so that you may imitate that other crown of Christ, which afterwards came to Him, because He also tasted honey after gall, nor was He hailed as King of Glory by the heavenly ones before He was as King of the Jews condemned to the cross, made for a little while by His Father somewhat lower than the angels, and so crowned with glory and honor." And St. Jerome: "Christ," he says, "was crowned with thorns, so that He might obtain for us the diadem of the kingdom."
And a Reed in His Right Hand — so that the reed might be as the scepter of Christ the King of the Jews, but a reed-scepter — that is, fragile, hollow, vile and ridiculous. What kind of reed this was, Laevinus Lemnius describes in De Herbis Biblicis, chap. xxvii: "There are," he says, "several varieties of reed: one species is smoothly polished, knotless and with no joints or internodes; it is called typha palustris (marsh-reed), and was such as was placed in the hand of Christ as a royal scepter to mock His feigned kingship. This plant has the form of a royal or imperial scepter, whose tip is of about two palms' height and of thumb-thickness, packed with dense, compacted down; which if you stroke with hand or fingers, you would believe you were handling silk or some kind of shaggy mass. But after a few days it dissolves into seed-tufts, and vanishes into diffused down."
Again Tertullian, in his book On the Soldier's Crown, chap. xiv: "The virtue of Christ," he says, "took away all the stings of death, blunting them in the endurance of the Lord's head." Symbolically: St. Jerome and St. Athanasius, in the sermon On the Cross: The reed, they say, puts serpents to flight and kills them; so Christ drives off venomous concupiscences. Hear St. Jerome: "Just as Caiaphas said that it was expedient that one man should die for all, not knowing what he said; so likewise these men, whatever they did, although they did them with another mind, yet to us who believe they conferred sacraments. In the scarlet cloak, He sustains the bloody works of the Gentiles; in the crown of thorns, He looses the ancient curse; in the reed, He slays venomous creatures — or else He held the reed in His hand, as though to write the sacrilege of the Jews." Furthermore St. Ambrose, on Luke chap. xxiii: "The reed," he says, "is grasped in Christ's hand, so that human frailty may no longer, like a reed, be moved by the wind, but strengthened by the works of Christ may stand firm; or else, according to Mark, He strikes His own head with it, so that our condition, solidified by the touch of divinity, may no longer waver."
Finally, Bede, in his book On the Holy Places, chap. xx, and Gregory of Tours, in De Gloria Martyrum, chap. vii, relate that this reed, along with the pillar, the thorny crown, and the sponge by which Christ was given vinegar to drink, were preserved with great care by the Christians.
And Bowing the Knee Before Him, They Mocked Him, Saying: Hail (in Greek χαῖρε, that is, rejoice, hail; in Syriac, peace be to thee), King of the Jews. — Note here that Christ is, as it were, being mockingly inaugurated as king by the soldiers, with all the insignia of kings. For first, they bring up the whole cohort, as though a whole army surrounding and encircling Him; second, the throne was a stone or a bench, and that lofty, in the manner of a tribunal, as Clement of Alexandria teaches in book II of the Paedagogus, chap. viii, and others; third, the royal crown was of thorns; fourth, the military cloak was the scarlet cloak; fifth, the scepter was a reed; sixth, in place of the people's joyful acclamations and reverence, there were the soldiers' mock genuflections and salutations, along with spittings, slaps and blows — all of which Christ bore with divine humility and patience, and for this reason He merited that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, of things in heaven, on earth and under the earth, and that every tongue should confess that the Lord Jesus is in the glory of God the Father, Philippians 2:9.
Tropologically: Christ wished here: first, to present to us the image of the vanity and the affliction of the kingdoms and honors of the world, and of all kings and princes; second, to turn these mockeries into the weapons of His own victory, and especially, by His humility, to conquer the most proud Lucifer; third, to teach that the kingdom of the world is placed in honors, pomps, delights, but His own consists in contempt of honors, pleasures and of oneself. See more in St. Athanasius, sermon On the Cross and Passion; Theophylact and Jansenius here; and Tertullian, On the Soldier's Crown, chap. xiv.
Finally, by the just vengeance of God, it came to pass a little later that, by an illusion entirely like the one by which Christ was in mockery crowned King of the Jews, Agrippa, the king of the Jews — though absent — was mocked at Alexandria by a mime-actor who was playing his part. Philo narrates this episode at length in Against Flaccus, which I shall summarize briefly: "Flaccus," he says, "the governor of Egypt, allowed the Alexandrian mob to revile the king with insults. There was a certain madman named Karrabas, the laughing-stock of boys and youths. This wretch they drove to the gymnasium, set him in a high place so that he could be seen by all, and presently placed on his head a paper diadem; for a cloak they put on his body a mat; in place of a scepter, someone picked up a fragment of reed from the ground and gave it into his hand. Thus adorned with royal insignia and transformed into a king, the youths, carrying poles on their shoulders in the manner of stage-players, surrounded him as a bodyguard; then others approached to salute him," and so on. Behold Karrabas, here taking the role of Agrippa, represents Barabbas, whom the Jews preferred to Christ.
Verse 30: And Spitting Upon Him, They Took the Reed and Struck His Head
— as though He were a fool, says St. Thomas, who had foolishly aspired to the kingdom of Judaea; at the same time they drove the crown of thorns more firmly and more deeply into His head. All of this was the height of insult and of the most atrocious pain, invented and suggested, as Origen says, not so much by men as by demons. "Not one single member," says Chrysostom, "but the whole body was suffering these atrocious injuries. The head, afflicted by the crown; by the reed, the blows of fists; the face, by spittings; the cheeks, by slaps; the rest of the body, by scourgings, nakedness, the clothing with the cloak, the feigned adoration; the hands, by the reed which they gave Him to hold for a scepter; the mouth itself and the tongue, by the draught of vinegar and gall."
Here must be inserted and woven into the historical sequence what Matthew passes over in silence and John supplies in chap. xix, from verse 1 to verse 16: namely, that Christ, thus scourged, crowned with thorns and clothed in the cloak, was brought forth by Pilate and shown to the Jews with the words "Behold the man," so that he might bend them to mercy; but the Jews, growing more enraged against Him, obstinately cried out: "Crucify, crucify Him," because He made Himself the Son of God. Hearing this, Pilate, fearing lest Jesus might be the son of Jove, Hercules, or some other god who would avenge His death, privately asked Jesus: "Whence art thou?" When Jesus was silent, Pilate added that he had the power to kill Him. Christ answered: "Thou wouldst have no power against Me unless it had been given thee from above." Power, that is, faculty, permission and force to kill Me: for Pilate had been given power from God — that is, authority and jurisdiction over the other Jews; but over Christ it had only been permitted by God. For Christ as man, since He was the Son of God, was free and subject to no human power — rather the king and lord of all, as I said on verse 11.
Therefore Pilate, in judging and condemning Christ, sinned against justice in three ways: first, by usurping a power and jurisdiction over Christ, inasmuch as he had none; second, by perverting the order of judgments, because he yielded to the tumult of the Jews, and condemned Christ not for a crime but for a riot; third, by perverting justice, because he condemned an innocent Christ so as not to be thought an enemy of Caesar, as John adds. With these things from John woven in order up to Christ's condemnation by Pilate, we must now subjoin what Matthew here adds, saying:
Verse 31: After They Had Mocked Him, They Stripped Him of the Cloak, and Led Him Away to Crucify Him
"When the soldiers," says Victor of Antioch on Mark xv, "had had their fill of mocking Christ our Redeemer, they led Him away to crucify Him."
They Stripped Him of the Cloak. — With the crown of thorns left upon Him "once put on, and never taken away," as Origen says. "He is stripped," says St. Athanasius in the sermon On the Cross, "by the executioners, of those garments of skin which we had put on in Adam, so that in place of them we might be able to put on Christ."
They Put His Own Garments on Him, — partly so that the crucifiers might claim the garments for themselves, and partly so that from them Jesus might be recognized by the people and mocked for His greater disgrace.
And Led Him Away to Crucify Him, — with, as it seems, a trumpeter going before who, blowing his trumpet, was summoning the people to witness this execution. That this was the custom among the Romans, Gretser teaches in book I De Cruce, chap. xvi.
Christ was worn out by the frequent and long journeys made during this night and this morning. For from the supper-room He had gone to the Mount of Olives, distant by 1500 lesser paces or steps (a lesser pace is two and a half feet, while the greater or geometric pace is double this, containing five feet: a thousand greater paces make an Italian mile, but a thousand lesser paces make only half an Italian mile). Thence by about the same distance He was led back to the house of Annas; from there to the house of Caiaphas, 330 paces away; thence to the house of Pilate, a thousand paces away; thence to the house of Herod, 350 paces away; thence back again to Pilate; and finally from Pilate to Mount Calvary, 1321 lesser paces. See Adrichomius in his Description of Jerusalem, no. 118, who, drawing upon the Geographers, graphically describes the Way of the Cross of Christ and the various stations, encounters and falls of Christ along it.
Verse 32: Going Forth, They Found a Man of Cyrene, Named Simon: Him They Compelled to Carry His Cross
Going Forth (either from the house of Pilate, as St. Jerome, Adrichomius and the Geographers of the Way of the Cross will have it; or from the city of Jerusalem, as Franciscus Lucas and others will have it). A Cyrenean, that is, a native of Cyrene — either the one in Libya, from which, as from a metropolis, the whole Cyrenaican region takes its name, and which St. Mark converted to the faith of Christ, as Origen, Franciscus Lucas and Gagneius hold (on Acts chap. II); or from the one in Syria, as Maldonatus thinks; or from the one in Cyprus, which, built by Cyrus, was called Cyrene, as others will have it. From there, then, he had migrated into Judaea. Therefore Simon here was of Gentile origin, as St. Hilary, Ambrose, Bede, St. Leo (in his 8th sermon On the Passion) and others think; although Maldonatus and Franciscus Lucas suppose he was a Jew — perhaps because, having come into Judaea, he was made a proselyte and passed over into the religion of the Jews. This was by a mystery, so that it might be signified that not the unbelieving Jews but the Gentiles who believe in Christ would embrace His faith and cross, and that through them the Jews too would do the same at the end of the world.
Simon. — The tradition is, says Pererius, that this Simon was afterwards converted to the faith of Christ along with his sons. Hence Mark adds that he was the father of Alexander and Rufus, who at the time when Mark was writing these things, seem to have been well known among the Christians and celebrated disciples of Christ: for this Rufus was first bishop of Thebes, and afterwards of Dertosa (Tortosa) in Spain, and accordingly the Church celebrates his feast on the 12th of November. Of him St. Polycarp writes thus to the Philippians: "I beseech all of you to persevere in the word of justice and patience, which you have witnessed with your own eyes not only in the most blessed ones there — I mean Ignatius, Zosimus and Rufus — but also in others who are among you, and in Paul and the rest of the Apostles."
But Alexander, brother of Rufus and another son of Simon, is entered as a martyr in the Martyrology by Ado and Bede on the 11th of March. Hence L. Dexter, in his Chronicle under the year of Christ 112, no. 10, has it thus: "At Carthago Spartaria (a city of Spain), St. Alexander, brother of Rufus — the first bishop of the Dertosans in Tarraconese Spain — the son of Simon of Cyrene who carried Christ's cross after Him, suffered martyrdom with Candidus, Zosimus and their companions. In religion Simon followed his sons, nor was he defrauded of the due reward for having carried the cross after Christ: for after many good works, he rests peacefully at Jerusalem." And Braulio, or Helecas, in his Additions to the Chronicle of Maximus, has this: "The memory of Saints Rufus and Alexander, sons of Simon of Cyrene (by some called Niger), is famous. Simon came with his sons into Spain, accompanying St. Paul, where he preached; having previously gone there in the company of Saint James, and preached there at that time; it is said that he was consecrated bishop, along with others, by St. Peter, and that he died at Jerusalem. He is venerated on the first of December." Again L. Dexter, under the year of Christ 100, no. 4: "Rufus," he says, "returning from Thebes to Spain, sits as bishop of Dertosa." See in both places the annotations of Bivarius, who thinks that this Simon is the man who is called Niger and was the companion of Paul and Barnabas, Acts 13:1.
They Compelled Him, — that is, they forced him. See what was said on the etymology of angaria, chap. v, verse 41. This was a great insult and ignominy inflicted by the soldiers, both because Simon was a foreigner, and because they compelled him publicly to carry the infamous cross of Christ to the place of execution. Yet Simon bore both patiently, and for this reason he deserved to be enlightened by Christ and to become a Christian and a saint, as I said. For just as he was a companion of the cross, so he also became a sharer of its glory.
Symbolically: St. Gregory, book VIII of the Moralia, chap. xxvi: "To carry the cross of Jesus under compulsion," he says, "is to endure the affliction of abstinence with a different intention than it requires. Does not the man carry the cross of Jesus under compulsion who, as though at the Lord's command, subdues his flesh, yet does not love his spiritual homeland? And so Simon too carries the cross, yet does not die, because every hypocrite indeed afflicts his body with abstinence, yet through love of glory lives to the world."
That He Might Carry His Cross. — Christ first bore His cross — reportedly 15 feet long and 8 wide — and this already with His whole body and shoulders bloody from the scourging, exhausted and broken. He carried it so that He bore one extreme end upon His shoulder, while He dragged the other along the ground; and as He dragged it, as usually happens, it kept striking against rocks and holes, so that He was continually jolted — with the result that the wounds from the scourges were constantly reopened by this jolting, which was a continuous and grievous affliction for Him. That Christ carried His own cross is expressly stated by John, chap. xix, 17: "And bearing His cross, He went forth." So Euthymius here, and St. Athanasius in the sermon On the Cross. For it was the custom that those to be crucified should carry their own cross, as Plutarch teaches in De Sera numinis vindicta, and Lipsius and Gretser, On the Cross.
Then, when the Jews and the soldiers saw Christ failing under the cross, they laid it upon Simon, in order to keep Jesus alive for greater tortures, mockeries and for the crucifixion, and that they might reach Mount Calvary more quickly, and more quickly crucify Christ, and so return home for the midday meal. For it was already noon, which is the hour for the meal.
Note here that Simon does not seem to have carried the cross along with Christ in such a way that Christ bore the front part of the cross and Simon the rear part, as painters depict it; rather, he alone carried the whole cross while Christ walked before him. For Luke, XXIII, 26, says: "And they laid the cross upon him"; and Matthew and Mark: "Him they compelled, that he might carry His cross." So say Saints Augustine, Ambrose, Athanasius and the other Fathers generally, who recognize various mysteries here.
First, St. Athanasius, sermon On the Cross: "For the Lord," he says, "both bore the cross Himself, and again Simon the man carried it. First then Jesus carried it as a trophy against the devil; and willingly He bore the cross Himself — for He did not approach death under compulsion of necessity. But again Simon the man carried it, so that it might be made known to all that the Lord was dying not His own death, but the death of men."
Second, St. Ambrose, on Luke chap. xxiii: "This was done so that He Himself," he says, "might first erect the trophy of His own cross, and then hand it over to the Martyrs to be erected. For it is fitting that the victor should Himself first raise up His own trophy;" and then likewise that "Christ should bear it in the man, and the man in Christ."
Third, Origen: "Not only," he says, "was it fitting that He should take up His own cross, but it was also fitting that we should carry it, fulfilling for ourselves a saving compulsion." For so He Himself has decreed: "He that taketh not his cross, and followeth Me, is not worthy of Me," Matthew 10:38.
Finally, Tertullian, in book V De Praescriptionibus, chap. XLVI, and book I Against Marcion; St. Augustine, in his book On Heresies; and Eusebius, book IV of his History, chap. VIII — all record that it was a heresy of Basilides and Marcion that Christ so dazzled the eyes of the Jews that, leaving Simon behind, Christ Himself slipped out of their sight and vanished: whence it came about that the Jews, killing and crucifying Simon, thought they were crucifying Christ. The Mahometans err in the same way today.
Here must be woven into the sequence of the history what befell Christ on the way as He went to Mount Calvary, which Matthew passes over in silence and Luke supplies at XXIII, 31: namely, that Christ, with pious women following and lamenting Him, told them to weep not over Himself but over their own sons, who on account of the slaying of Christ were to be reduced by Titus and Vespasian to such straits that they would hide themselves in caves, and would say "to the mountains, Fall upon us, and to the hills, Cover us." See what is said on Hosea 10:8. So St. Jerome. He adds the reason: "For if they do these things in the green wood, what shall be done in the dry?" For Christ was like a green tree, always flourishing with the leaves and fruits of grace, and therefore unworthy and unsuitable for fire — that is, for God's vengeance and destruction; but the Jews were like a dry tree, being empty of grace and barren of good works, and therefore most worthy and most suited for the hearth and for the vengeance of God.
Note the word "they do" — namely, the Roman soldiers; or impersonally by a Hebraism, "they do," that is, "these things are being done" — the Jews being the agents, or by the faction of the Jews. Among these women was one Berenice, or Veronice, commonly Veronica, who, offering a veil to Christ that He might wipe His face dripping with sweat and blood, received it back from Him with the image of Christ Himself imprinted upon it, as Christian tradition holds — and Bishop Methodius (in Marianus Scotus' Chronicle, A.D. 39) and, following him, Baronius (in the year of Christ 34, chap. cxvi). This veil, marked with the image of Christ, was brought to Rome and is preserved in the basilica of St. Peter, and is devoutly shown to the people every year on Good Friday, as I myself have often seen. Concerning it and its miracles there is an ancient book in the archives of the Vatican Library. Of Veronica L. Dexter writes thus under the year of the Lord 48, no. 2: "Veronice, a holy woman, came from Gaul to Rome, and there, leaving behind the divine visage, famous for miracles, she passed to the Lord in her seventieth year — she whom they say was healed by Christ from an issue of blood." Of the same the Acts of St. Martial, first bishop of Limoges, have this: "He came with the Blessed Apostle Peter to Rome, and was sent by him into Gaul, having in his company Amator and his wife Veronica, who was a familiar and intimate friend of the Virgin Mary. But St. Amator lived a solitary life on the rock which is now called Amator's Rock, and there he died. Meanwhile Veronica followed St. Martial as he was preaching in the territory of Bordeaux, and grew old there." Concerning her, see Bredenbach, Saligniac, Paschal, and Adrichomius in his Description of Jerusalem, nos. 44 and 118.
Verse 33: They Came to the Place Which Is Called Golgotha, Which Is the Place of Calvary
Calvary (calvaria) is the skull of a man with the flesh stripped off, also called calva. Hence the Syriac translates "Gogoultho," whose meaning is skull; and so too the Ethiopic. Therefore Golgotha is the same as the head or skull of a man, so named from its revolvability and roundness — from the root gal or galal, which means to turn, to turn back, to revolve. Hence galgal means circle, and also heaven. The Hebrews say גלגולת gulgoleth; the Chaldeans and Syrians, with aleph added, say gulgotha, which the common people, in their fashion, corruptly pronounce as Golgotha.
Which Is (namely, if you interpret it, the same as) the Place of Calvary. — That is, a place where human skulls appear. From this, some think that Matthew wrote in Greek; but this does not stand in the way of his having written in Hebrew, for he could have interpreted the Hebrew word "Golgotha" by another, likewise Hebrew but clearer, word. Others think that this interpretation of the name "Golgotha" was added by the Greek translator of St. Matthew. Hence this interpretation is not found in the Hebrew Gospel of St. Matthew which is now in circulation.
You will ask, why this place where Christ was crucified is called "Golgotha" or "Calvary." I answer: The common opinion of Origen, Tertullian, St. Athanasius, Epiphanius, St. Augustine, Cyril, and the other Fathers — with the single exception of St. Jerome — is that it was so named from the tradition that Adam was buried in "Golgotha," and that Christ, there distilling His blood from the cross, redeemed him and recalled him to the life of grace, according to Ephesians 5:14: "Rise up, thou that sleepest, and arise from the dead, and Christ shall enlighten thee;" where I have already cited the Fathers I just named.
To this point is what Jacob of Orrhoa, or of Edessa, master of St. Ephrem, writes — as Andreas Masius witnesses on the last chapter of Joshua, verse 32 — namely that Noah religiously took up the bones of Adam into the ark, and after the flood distributed them among his sons, and gave to Shem, whom he preferred to the others, the skull of Adam, and with it Judaea. So great was the care and honor of the tomb among the ancients, because of the immortality of souls. Perhaps he was foreshadowing that Christ, in Calvary and among the Jews, would raise Adam from death. Hence St. Ambrose, on Luke chap. xxiii, teaches that Christ was crucified in Golgotha because "it was fitting," he says, "that the first-fruits of our life should be set in the place where the beginnings of death had been."
Another, more literal and obvious reason is given here by St. Jerome, Bede, Jansenius, Franciscus Lucas and others: that this hill is called Calvary because on it there was a place of execution, where the condemned were punished and beheaded; whence many skulls of the beheaded were there. Baronius, Lorinus and Gretser (in book I De Cruce) deny this, saying that among the Jews the use of the sword and of beheading did not exist, but only of stoning, crucifixion and burning; for Scripture mentions only these three penalties. So says Sigonius in book VI De Republica Hebraeorum, chap. viii. But that the Jews did use the sword in their executions is taught by the author of the book Sanhedrin, and by Petrus Gregorius in book XXXI of his Syntagma, chap. xvi. It is certain that after Judaea had been subdued by the Romans, criminals there were punished by beheading — for Herod Antipas beheaded John the Baptist, and his nephew Herod Agrippa beheaded St. James, the brother of St. John the Apostle, Acts XII. Add also that in Golgotha many skulls were scattered about, not only of the beheaded, but also of those stoned, burned and crucified.
Mystically, Gretser: "Prophetically," he says, "this place was called Golgotha, because on it our true head — namely Christ the Lord — died." Christ willed to be crucified in a public and infamous place of execution such as "Golgotha" was, so that He might atone for and expiate our infamous and execrable crimes. Wherefore He Himself converted this place of execution into a place of honor and adoration. For Christians reverence and adore the crucified Christ in Calvary. For Christ, as Sedulius sings, "Clothed the punishment with honor; / And sanctifying the very torments in Himself, He made them blessed." So Seneca says of Socrates in the Consolation to Helvia: "Socrates entered the prison to take away the shame from the place itself."
St. Jerome and St. Augustine (in his 71st sermon De Tempore), and Bede in De Locis sanctis, chap. ii, and others note that on this hill Abraham was commanded by God to sacrifice his son. For Mount Moriah, where this took place, is next to Mount Calvary, so that the two appear to be one and the same mountain, divided into two ridges or hills — namely Moriah and Calvary.
Why Christ was crucified outside Jerusalem at Calvary — the Apostle in Hebrews 13:11 and following assigns a fourfold cause: literal, allegorical, anagogical and tropological. Whence he concludes: "Let us go forth to Him outside the camp, bearing His reproach." See what is said there. The primary reason was that He might signify the power of Christ's cross — namely that faith, grace and the Church were to be transferred from the Jews to all the nations of the whole world, "so that the cross of Christ might not be the altar of the temple but of the world," says St. Leo in his 9th sermon On the Passion.
Verse 34: They Gave Him Wine to Drink Mingled With Gall; and When He Had Tasted, He Would Not Drink
(The Arabic: vinegar mingled with myrrh.) — In the meantime, while the cross and its socket were being bored out and prepared, this wine was offered to Christ while He was resting a little — the wine which, according to custom, was given to condemned criminals both to relieve the thirst from which they suffered in such anguish and to fortify them, so they might have the strength to bear the torments, according to that passage in Proverbs 31:6: "Give strong drink to them that are sad, and wine to them that are grieved in mind." But the Jews, with unheard-of barbarity, partly in mockery and partly as a torment, soured and corrupted this wine of Christ's with gall. This was done partly by the insolence of the soldiers, partly by the malice of the Jews. Whence Christ complains, saying: "They gave me gall for my food" (Tertullian, Against the Jews, chapter 10, reads "for my drink"); for the gall served as a kind of bread and food, while the wine was Christ's drink. Hence Euthymius: "I think," he says, "that fragments of dry gall were softened in vinegar, so that the vinegar served in place of wine, while the fragments served as a morsel of bread; and they gave drink chiefly, but consequently also food: for to those who are failing in spirit we customarily offer wine with bread thrown in, so that, first drinking, they may afterwards also be able to eat."
Note first: this drink offered to Christ was another and different one from that mentioned in verse 48, and of which Luke and John speak — namely that which they held out to Christ, already crucified, when He cried: "I thirst." For this first drink was given to Christ before the crucifixion, and this was of wine, while the other was of vinegar. For "wine" is what all the Latin codices consistently read here, together with Origen, St. Ambrose, St. Jerome, St. Hilary, and St. Augustine, On the Consensus of the Evangelists, Book III, chapter 11; although the Greek text, as well as St. Chrysostom, Theophylact, Titus, Euthymius, and the Syriac, instead of οἶνον (that is, wine) read — corruptly, as it seems — ὄξος, that is, vinegar; unless one should say that this wine is called ὄξος, that is, vinegar, because it was harsh and sour. Of this drink, then, Christ says: "They gave me gall for my food"; but of the later drink, verse 48, He says: "And in my thirst they gave me vinegar to drink." It is called "gall," not a drink but food, because this gall seems to have been thrown into the wine whole, not mixed in with it, as I have already said.
Note secondly: Mark calls this wine mixed with gall "wine mingled with myrrh," because myrrh together with gall had been added to this wine, or perhaps myrrh alone without gall, so that the myrrh itself is called "gall" on account of its bitterness. So teach almost all the Fathers and Interpreters, with the sole exception of Cardinal Baronius, who, in the year of Christ 34, chapter 84, holds that the myrrh-wine was an aromatic wine, most sweet in both taste and smell, so named because it was prepared in myrrh-vases with various aromatic spices mixed in; but although he argues this acutely and learnedly, he does not convince others: for myrrh-wine cannot be called gall, or gall-like, as Matthew here names it; nor would the Jews, most hostile to Christ, have allowed such a thing to be given to Christ. Hence, in verse 48, they gave Him vinegar to drink when He was thirsty. Finally, Baronius retracts his opinion at the end of Volume X, and agrees with those who hold that the myrrh-wine was harsh and bitter.
And When He Had Tasted It, He Would Not Drink, because He abhorred the malice of the Jews, who had corrupted the wine with gall; or because He wished to suffer a greater thirst on the cross, that He might give us a living example of the mortification of the senses.
Therefore Palamon, a man of marvelous sanctity, when on Easter day he had ordered his disciple St. Pachomius to prepare food befitting so great a feast, and the latter had prepared the wild herbs which he was accustomed to eat, and had added oil with salt, contrary to custom, in place of seasoning — Palamon, striking his forehead and weeping, said: "My Lord was crucified, subjected to insults, struck with blows, given gall and vinegar to drink — and shall I eat oil?" Wherefore he refused to taste it, and ordered the usual dish of herbs to be set before him. So stands the Life of Saint Pachomius.
Verse 35: After They Had Crucified Him, They Divided His Garments, Casting Lots
Matthew — partly from his usual habit of aiming at brevity and condensing the deeds of Christ, and partly from his horror at the indignity and atrocity of Christ's crucifixion — narrates it not as though it were present, but as though it were already past, and brushes over it as if with closed eyes, saying: "And after they had crucified Him."
Note first: it is a dogma of the faith that Christ was fastened to the cross not with ropes, but with nails, by which Christ's hands were pierced through — so that Thomas could put his own hands into them, as is clear from John 20:25ff. Hence in Psalm 21 it is said: "They have dug my hands and my feet." It is nevertheless possible that ropes were also used to bind Christ's body to the cross: otherwise the whole mass of the body could scarcely have been suspended and sustained by the hands alone. Indeed St. Hilary, On the Trinity, Book X, says that Christ was both fastened to the cross with nails and bound to it with ropes. These ropes are shown at Rome in the church of the Holy Cross in Jerusalem, built by St. Helena. Nonnus of Panopolis, paraphraser of the Gospel of St. John, chapter 19, verse 48, adds that Christ's hands, besides being pierced by the nails, were also bound to the cross by an iron chain. For he says: "There the executioners, stretching Christ upon a four-cornered beam set up high above the earth, bound with force both of His outspread hands with an iron chain, and with one single immense nail pierced through the little breastbones of both feet at one stroke — the feet being placed and folded one upon the other — an inflexible chain of destruction."
St. Irenaeus, Justin, and Gregory of Tours (in Gretser, On the Cross, Book I, chapter 29) add that on the cross there was a footrest, or small board, on which Christ's feet were supported and fastened. But on the cross this arrangement seems too refined, says Lipsius, On the Cross; and Christ did not stand on the cross, but hung suspended, as is clear from Acts 5:30; Galatians 3:13. Less inconveniently, Francisco Lucas and others hold that the cross had been hollowed out at Christ's feet, so that with the heels received into this hollow, the feet might hang on the cross not curved but upright and extended.
Moreover, some hold these nails to have been three, others four — so that as each hand had its own nail, so too each foot had its own. St. Bridget, Revelations Book I, chapter 10, asserts that one foot was placed over the other and fastened to the cross with two nails, and that the Blessed Virgin revealed this to her. The stigmata of St. Francis represent four nails, says Lucas of Tuy, Book II Against the Albigenses, chapter 11, and from him Luke Wadding, in his Annals of the Friars Minor, year of Christ 1224, number 19. Less probably, St. Bernard, in his sermon On the Threefold Custody — of Hand, Tongue and Heart, holds that there were six nails in the hands and feet of Christ. I myself saw at Rome, with great devotion of mind, an intact nail of Christ, in the church of the Holy Cross in Jerusalem — long, moderately thick, square-shafted, with a great round but hollow swelling at the head, and gradually tapering to a point. The thieves who were crucified with Christ were also fastened to their crosses with nails: otherwise St. Helena could not have recognized, from the nails, the cross of Christ which she found from among the crosses of the thieves — though indeed this could only have happened by a miracle.
Christ, then, was fastened to the cross with iron nails driven in with a hammer — driven, I say, through the palm of the hand (where the sense of touch is most active, and therefore the pain most acute), as the common understanding of the faithful holds; and so painters everywhere depict Christ as crucified through the palms of the hands. In favor of this is that saying of Zechariah 13:6: "What are these wounds in the midst of thy hands?" Some, however, hold that Christ was crucified with nails driven not through the palm of the hand, but through the wrist. The wrist is the name given to the end of the arm, where the pulse is, and where the arm joins the hand. Driven, I say, through the wrist not directly, but transversely, so that from the wrist they would be driven into the hand, and the point of the nail would end at the outer surface of the hand and fasten it to the cross — for the nails were very long, as is clear from the one we see at Rome. That this is so, says Mallonius, is clearly shown from the Holy Shroud in which the body of Christ was wrapped when taken down from the cross, in which these sacred stigmata of Christ are plainly visible, and which is religiously preserved and venerated at Turin among the Allobroges (Savoyards). In favor of this too is Psalm 21: "They have dug my hands," etc. The same is shown by ancient pictures of Christ crucified. They say they crucified Christ this way both to fasten Him more firmly to the cross and to inflict upon Him greater pain: for the pain was the greater in proportion as the passage of the nails through wrist and hand was longer, and therefore the wound too was longer; and because the sense of touch is strong in the wrist, as is clear from the pulse; and because this wound, being transverse and long, would be continually enlarged and prolonged by the weight of the body and of the arms weighing down on wrist and hand.
Secondly, the bitterness of Christ's crucifixion is clear: first, from the fact that in it His hands and feet were pierced through with nails, where the sense of touch is most acute; secondly, because on the cross the whole weight of His body hung from His transfixed hands; thirdly, because this pain was prolonged, so much so that Christ lived three hours on the cross enduring this torment: hence the cross takes its name from "cruciating" (torturing). Whence that passage which was said literally of Jerusalem in Lamentations 1 is mystically applied to Christ: "O all ye that pass by the way, attend, and see if there be any sorrow like to my sorrow." Fourth, on the cross the arms and members of Christ were so stretched out that His individual bones could be counted, according to that passage: "They have dug" (as if to say, By digging they made pits of) "my hands and my feet, they have numbered all my bones," Psalm 21.
Whence St. Catherine of Siena used to say that the greatest pain which Christ felt on the cross was in the chest; namely, in the stretching and the consequent disjoining of the bones of the chest — and that she had learned this by experience when she was made a partaker of all His sufferings by Christ. And reason supports it: for the bones of the chest are given for the defense of the heart, and so the pain becomes immense. So stands her Life, Book II, chapter 29, written by Ambrosius Catharinus. Let a man pray with outstretched arms for the space of two or three Misereres, and he will feel how great this pain is. Genebrardus notes on Psalm 21:20 that in place of "they numbered," the Hebrew has מספר asapper, that is, "I will number" — that is, "I could number," just as any other looking at me could; and so our version, rendering it "they numbered," means "they could number," because Christ, he says, felt such torment from this stretching and tearing of His limbs that He Himself had no leisure to number His own bones.
Thirdly, Christ was crucified wearing the crown of thorns, as I have already said. Again, between two thieves, as though their leader. Likewise, naked in the Roman manner. Indeed, many doctors, with St. Ambrose and St. Bonaventure, teach that not even His private parts were covered and veiled — although Abulensis, Dionysius the Carthusian, and Barradius think otherwise, on the grounds that this would be indecent in the presence of men and women; but Christ suffered rather more indecorously. So Gretser, On the Cross, Book I, chapter 22; and Suarez, Part III, Question 46, Article 8, Section 4; and Francisco Lucas here: to Christ, so supremely chaste and modest, this was the greatest shame and pain. Hear St. Ambrose, Book X on Luke chapter 23: "Naked," he says, "He ascends the cross; behold, I see Him naked. Let him therefore ascend thus who is preparing to conquer the world, that he may not seek the aids of the world. Adam was conquered, who sought clothing: He conquered, who laid aside His clothing, and ascended such as we were formed by nature under God our Author." "But Adam," says D. Tauler, chapter 33 of the Exercises on the Life of Christ, "on losing his innocence, hastened to cover himself and clothe himself with garments: but Christ was stripped naked, because He kept the purity of innocence whole and unharmed, nor had He need of any other covering." Hence St. Francis, wishing to follow Christ's example, prostrated himself naked upon the ground at death, as I said at Matthew 5, on the words: "Blessed are the poor in spirit."
Reflecting on these things, St. Flavia, a most noble virgin and martyr, and sister of the martyr St. Placid, when by command of the tyrant Manucha she was hung up naked, that she might deny Christ, said: "I am prepared to bear not only the nakedness of my body, but also sword and fire, for the sake of Him who for me was willing to be stripped, scourged, and crucified." So stand the Acts of St. Placid in Surius, under October 5.
Fourthly, it is commonly held that Christ was crucified on a cross laid flat on the ground: for so it was done with those who carried their own cross, whereas it was different with those who were hung on a cross already fixed — for example, on a scaffold already erected. So St. Anselm, Laurence Justinian, Abulensis, Gretser, and others hold that Christ was fastened to the cross on the ground. Otherwise, they say, Christ's crucifixion on a high and erect cross would have been too difficult. But the opposite — namely, that Christ was fastened to the cross when it was already erect, standing, that is, on a higher footrest and extending His hands so that they could easily be nailed to the cross already fixed in the ground — is taught by Nonnus (whose words I have already cited), and St. Bonaventure, Lipsius in his treatise On the Cross, Joannes Molanus in his treatise On Images and Painting, Toletus and Ribera on John chapter 19, verse 48, and St. Bridget in Revelations Book I, chapter 15, and there also Consalvus Durantus, and likewise Daniel Mallonius in his commentary on Book of Alphonsus Paleotti On the Stigmata of the Holy Shroud, chapter 16. In favor of this is Canticles 7:8: "I will go up into the palm-tree, and will take hold of its fruits." See what is said there. Salmeron, Suarez, and Lorinus on Psalm 21:17 make no determination on this question, and neither do I.
You will ask, first, why Christ was crucified rather than burned, stoned, or beheaded? I answer: the literal cause was that the Jews, out of hatred against Christ, wishing to dishonor His name and His sect and utterly to destroy them, wanted to inflict on Him the most shameful death. And such is death on the cross. For this reason they laid upon Him the charge that He had aspired to the kingdom of Judea and rebelled against Caesar: and rebels, seditious men, and those aspiring to a kingdom were by Roman law crucified — so that those who had wished to excel others in the kingdom might stand out above others on the gallows. Add to this that the Jews seem to have wished to transfer onto Christ the punishment of the cross due to Barabbas, as a seditious man and notorious robber. Whence, when Barabbas had been chosen instead of Christ, they immediately began to cry out against Christ: "Crucify Him." The cause on God's part was that it pleased God, through the foolishness of the cross, to save those who believe. For the cross is "to the Jews indeed a stumbling-block, and unto the Gentiles foolishness, but unto those who are called and chosen of God, the power and wisdom of God," as Paul teaches at length in 1 Corinthians 1. Add that victims were of old raised up, to signify that they were offered to God, and then burned with fire. So Christ, who offered Himself entirely, with arms outstretched, to God the Father as a holocaust and victim for our sins, was raised up on the cross, and there, by the pain — and still more by love of men — was roasted and scorched; just as His type, the Paschal lamb, stretched upon the spit in the manner of a cross, was being roasted.
The moral causes, on the part of Christ and of men, were various. The first: that just as Adam and Eve sinned by extending their hands to the forbidden tree, so Christ would expiate this sin by extending His hands to the wood of the cross. So St. Augustine in Sermon 4 of the Appendix On Diverse Things. Whence the Church sings: "By a tree we were made slaves, and by the holy cross we have been set free." And: "That whence death arose, thence life might rise again, and that he who conquered by a tree might also be conquered on a tree." And St. Gregory Nazianzen, in his oration about himself to the Arians: "To the tree of life, from which we had fallen, we have been recalled by the tree of ignominy." And St. Ambrose, on Luke chapter 4: "Death by a tree, life by a cross." Indeed Christ Himself says in Canticles 8: "Under the apple tree I raised thee up: there thy mother was corrupted, there she that bore thee was violated." Again, the cross is the expiation and remedy for the concupiscence contracted from Adam's sin, which is the fountain and origin of all sins: wherefore by the example of His cross Christ teaches us continually to crucify and mortify our concupiscence, if we wish to avoid sins and save our souls. So St. Athanasius, On the Incarnation of the Word.
The second cause: that, hanging in the air between heaven and earth, He might reconcile the heavenly with the earthly. So St. Ambrose, on Luke chapter 23: "That He might conquer not for Himself alone," he says, "but for all, He stretched out His hands on the cross, that He might draw all things unto Himself; so that, stripped of the knot of death, suspended from the yoke of faith, He might join to heavenly things those things that were previously earthly." St. Cyprian — or whoever the author is — in the Treatise On the Passion says: "I consider Thy works, and admire Thee fastened to the cross among the condemned, neither sad now nor fearful, but the victor over tortures, triumphing with uplifted hands over Amalec, and as it were sanctifying the people from on high, and raised up into the heights, and as it were nearest to heaven, bearing to those above the banner of the finished contest, and raising for those below a ladder to meet the Father."
Hence St. Jerome here teaches that Christ on the cross, through its four points, as it were embraces the whole world and its four regions: "For what is the very shape of the cross," he says, "except the square shape of the world? The East shining from the top, He holds to His right, the South stands at His left, the West is fastened under His feet. Whence the Apostle says: That we may know what is the height, and the breadth, and the length, and the depth. Birds, when they fly to the ether, take on the form of a cross; a man swimming through water, or praying, is seen in the shape of a cross; a ship upon the sea is driven along by a yard-arm likened to a cross." And St. Gregory Nazianzen, in his Poem On Virginity: "Also, spreading out to the ends of the world the act of His consecrated body, / He gathered the mortal race from the ends of the world, / and drew man together into one, / and placed him in the midst of the arms of mighty Godhead." This is what Christ says: "And I, if I be lifted up from the earth, will draw all things to Myself," John 12:32.
The third cause is given by St. Athanasius, On the Incarnation of the Word: "For if He had come for this reason, that He might bear our sins and curses, how by any other means could He have been an expiation or a curse, unless He had received upon Himself an accursed death? And this is the very cross, as it is written: Cursed is every one that hangeth on a tree," Deuteronomy 21:23; Galatians 3:13.
Add that in the cross all kinds of punishments meet together: wherefore Christ embraced them on His cross, that He might give to the Martyrs an example of bearing any torment whatever. For the cross cuts the hands and feet like a sword, stretches the body like the rack, lacerates like claws, mangles like wild beasts, burns and tortures like fire — so much so that it roasts and kills a man as with a slow fire, and so on. Wherefore Christ felt the torments of all the Martyrs, and represented them to Himself, and was afflicted for them, that He might obtain for all the strength to overcome them; as Blessed Laurence Justinian says, On the Triumphal Contest of Christ, chapter 19: "In Stephen He was stoned, in Laurence He was roasted, and thus in each individual He sustained the individual torments of the Martyrs and of all the other just."
The fourth cause is given by St. Augustine, Appendix On Diverse Things, Sermon 59: "He was unwilling," he says, "to be stoned or even struck with the sword, because, of course, we cannot always carry with us stones or iron by which we may be defended. But He chose the cross, which is expressed by a slight motion of the hand, and by which we are defended against the wiles of the enemy." This is what Paul says in Galatians 3: "Christ hath redeemed us from the curse of the law, being made a curse for us; for it is written: Cursed is every one that hangeth on a tree; that the blessing of Abraham might come on the Gentiles through Christ Jesus."
The fifth cause is assigned by St. Anselm in his Epistle to Philip, chapter 2: "The Saviour chose," he says, "so worst a death that He might kill every death." And, as St. Augustine says on Psalm 140: "That His disciples should not only not fear death, but not even shudder at any kind of death." The same St. Augustine, in the Book On the Christian Contest, chapter 11: "Do not," he says, "fear insults and crosses and death, because if they harmed a man, the man whom the Son of God took on would not have suffered them." So also St. Thomas, Part III, Question 48, Article 4.
The sixth cause is given by St. Athanasius, On the Incarnation of the Word: "The Lord came," he says, "that He might cast down the devil, purify the air, and find for us the way to heaven." Therefore He had to be crucified in the air. St. Chrysostom gives the same reason in his homily On the Cross and the Thief. St. Thomas gathers several other causes, Part III, Question 40, Article 4; and Jacobus Bosius, Book I On the Triumphant Cross, chapter 10; and Gretser, Book I On the Cross, chapters 41 and 42. Finally, St. Basil, in his homily On Humility: "The devil," he says, "was crucified in Him whom he had hoped to crucify, and died in Him whom he had hoped to destroy by death." Add St. Leo, Sermon 10 On the Passion: "The nails of Christ," he says, "have fastened the devil with perpetual wounds, and the punishment of the sacred members was the slaying of the hostile powers."
Moreover, in the cross there was fulfilled that saying of Psalm 95, as formerly read according to the Septuagint: "God reigned from the tree," because, as St. Ambrose says on Luke chapter 23: "Although the Lord Jesus was on the cross, yet above the cross He shone with the majesty of a king." And, as St. Augustine says: "Christ subdued the world not by iron, but by wood." The cross, then, was Christ's triumphal chariot, on which He Himself triumphed over the devil, sin, death, and hell. Hence St. Ambrose, in Book X on Luke chapter 23, calls the cross "the triumpher's chariot, and the triumphal gallows."
Hence the cross is also said to have been made of cypress, cedar, palm, and olive. Whence the verse: "The woods of the cross are palm, cedar, cypress, olive." This is cited by the Gloss on the Clementines, Book I On the Supreme Trinity. And: "The tall cypress holds the body." And: "The olive is the topmost part." See our Gretser, On the Cross, Book I, chapter 5, from St. Chrysostom. For on the cross Christ was exalted like a cedar, was beautiful with leafy branches like a cypress, poured forth the oil of grace like an olive, and, like a palm, triumphed victorious over death. Wherefore St. Cyprian — or whoever the author is — in his treatise On the Passion says: "Thou hast ascended, Lord, the palm: because that wood of Thy cross foretold the triumph over the devil, or the victory over principalities and powers and spiritual wickednesses; and there were in Thy hands two horns, in which Thy strength was hidden, and Thy dominion upon Thy shoulder: Thou Thyself, the carrier of Thy own gallows, didst cling to the wood which Thou hadst carried, sustaining the anxieties and labors of being lifted up and of the Passion. I have considered Thy works, and was afraid."
Finally, God willed the cross of Christ to be, first, the price of our redemption; secondly, the book of divine wisdom; thirdly, the mirror of every virtue and perfection. I say "the book of the wisdom of God"; nay more, in the atrocity of the cross Christ, first, showed His highest love toward men, inasmuch as He was crucified so atrociously and shamefully for them; secondly, the gravity of mortal sin, inasmuch as it could not be expiated, by the just decree of God, except by death on the cross; thirdly, the bitterness of the pains of hell. For if God so punished another's sin in Christ His Son, how will He punish their own sins in the vilest sinners themselves in the fire of hell? "For if in the green wood they do these things, what shall be done in the dry?" Fourthly, how highly the soul of any man must be valued, inasmuch as its price was Christ's life, by which He valued and redeemed it; and how great the zeal with which the salvation of souls is to be procured, lest Christ's blood should have been shed for them in vain and as if lost. Fifthly, how great will be the future happiness of the Blessed in heaven, inasmuch as it was bought by the torments of Christ on the cross. Rightly then does St. Augustine say, Tract 419 on John: "The wood on which the limbs of the suffering One were fastened was also the chair of the teaching Master."
The cross is also the mirror of every virtue and perfection, because Christ on the cross showed the pinnacle and summit of supreme humility, poverty, patience, fortitude, constancy, mortification, obedience, charity, and all the other virtues. "Look therefore, O Christian, and do according to the pattern that was shown thee on Mount Calvary," Exodus 25:40. This is what the Apostle says, Ephesians 3: "Being rooted in charity, that you may be able to comprehend with all the saints, what is the breadth, and length, and height, and depth: to know also the charity of Christ, which surpasseth all knowledge." See the things said there.
For this reason the Martyrs, by meditation on the cross of Christ, encouraged themselves to bear crosses of every kind. So St. Felicula, virgin and martyr, foster-sister of St. Petronilla, when she was being tortured on the rack, exulted, saying: "Behold, I see Christ my Spouse, who endured so much for me." St. Ignatius, in his Epistle to the Romans: "My love has been crucified." Saints Marcus and Marcellianus, brothers and martyrs crucified, used to say: "Never have we feasted so pleasantly as we now gladly bear these things for Christ's cause, in whose love we have now begun to be fixed. Would that He might let us suffer for as long as we shall be clothed in this corruptible body!" Thus the cross of Christ, as with honey, sweetens the crosses of the Saints. Saints Savinus and Cyprianus, martyrs of Brescia, stretched out and mangled upon wheels, gave thanks to God and sang: "How sweet is Thy love, O Lord!" St. Hesteria of Bergamo, virgin and martyr, said: "Behold, my neck is ready; rage against it: this I freely hand over for the faith of Christ my Lord." Saints Eusebius, Pontianus, Vincentius, and Peregrinus, martyrs under the Emperor Commodus, when, stretched as upon a cross upon the rack, they were beaten with sinew-whips and cudgels, mocked their torturers: "Do not hold back; for your time will fail you before our spirit for suffering for Christ will fail us." And when the governor Vitellius attributed so great a joy in torments to magic, St. Vincent answered: "We do not rejoice except in the Lord Jesus Christ." All these are recounted by Philippus Ferrarius in his Catalog of the Saints of Italy. So too in this age Christians crucified for the faith of Christ in Japan exulted that they were like Christ crucified, and were giving back cross for cross. St. Francis counted himself blessed that, by the stigmata of Christ's five wounds impressed on him from heaven, he was conformed to Christ crucified. Let the Religious also rejoice that, through their three vows — undertaken through love of Christ as through three nails — they are crucified with Him. On this matter see the elegant and pious oration of Abbot Pinufius in Cassian, Book IV On the Institutes of the Renunciants, chapters 34 and following; and Jerome Platus, Book II On the Good of the Religious State, chapter 11. Finally, piously, truly, and movingly says Francis de Sales, recently Bishop of Geneva: "It is either love, or madness, that slays Thee, good Christ; / it is love, and it is madness — the one mine, the other Thine."
You will ask, secondly: at what time was Christ crucified? I answer, first: Christ was conceived in the Virgin's womb on March 25, and after 33 years He was crucified on the same day, at the vernal equinox, though He was born on December 25 at the winter solstice. Hence the Church also, in the Martyrology, on March 25 commemorates the memory of St. Dismas the thief, who, crucified with Christ and converted by Him, heard: "This day shalt thou be with Me in paradise." The same is taught by St. Augustine, City of God Book 18, last chapter; by Chrysostom, Tertullian, St. Thomas, St. Antoninus, Platina, and Usuardus, whom Suarez cites and follows in Part III, Disputation 40, section 5, at the end. All these teach that Christ suffered on March 25, so that on that day precisely He completed 34 years from His conception and incarnation. Hence L. Dexter, in his Chronicon, at the year of Christ 34: "Christ the Lord," he says, "brought to the cross on the eighth calends of April" (that is, March 25), "crucified by the envy of the Jews, willingly met death for the salvation of the entire human race." Hence again in the Appendix to Ado's Martyrology, which our Heribert Rosweyde has edited, we read on March 25 thus: "At Jerusalem our Lord Jesus Christ was crucified, and in the same city the passion of St. James the Apostle, as is read in the Acts of the Apostles. On the same day the offering of Isaac, and the passage of the children of Israel through the Red Sea" — each of which was a type of Christ offered on the cross for us — "and the victory of Michael the Archangel over the dragon." From which you may infer that on the same day the world was created by God; for the angels were created together with it, who soon after creation began to do battle.
I answer, secondly: Christ was crucified on March 25 at noon. For St. John says, in 19:14, "It was about the sixth hour," namely from sunrise, which corresponds to noon. You will say: Mark, in chapter 15:25, says: "And it was the third hour, and they crucified Him." I answer: it was the third hour not as it began, but as it was ending: for the end of the third hour was the beginning of the sixth; for these hours, formerly among the Jews and Romans, contained three of our modern hours. That Mark means nothing else is clear from chapter 15:33, where he says: "And when the sixth hour had come, there was darkness over the whole earth." For these darknesses began with the crucifixion of Christ, as will be seen at verse 45. Theophylact gives the cause or fittingness: "On the sixth day," he says, "man was created, who also at the sixth hour ate of the tree; at the same hour, then, at which the Lord created man, He also healed his fall. On the sixth day and at the sixth hour He was fastened to the cross." Similarly among the Latins, Bede, expounding Mark: "The order of reason — nay rather, of divine piety — demanded," he says, "that at the hour at which the first Adam had brought death upon this world by sinning, at the same hour the second Adam, by dying, should destroy death." For at noon Adam had tasted the forbidden food, Genesis 3:8. Furthermore, many hold that Adam was created on the same day — namely, at the vernal equinox — and ate the forbidden fruit at the same hour at which Christ, dying on the cross, expiated the fault and, as it were, re-created him. Among these is Tertullian, who sings thus in Book I of his Poem against Marcion: "On the day, and in the place, on which most renowned Adam fell, / on this same day returning with the rolling years, / in the arena of the tree, the valiant athlete, joining battle, / stretched out His hands, following punishment in place of praise, / and conquered death, etc." And as to the hour, Procopius taught thus on Genesis chapter 3: "Christ," he says, "suffered His bitter passion at the very hours in which Adam ate; that is, from the sixth hour to the ninth. For Adam ate at the sixth hour: for that hour is, as it were, a fixed rule established for men to take food."
Note that Christ was crucified in such a way that, with His face turned away from Jerusalem (as though unworthy, as her enemy, to look upon her, but really as though about to reject the impious Jews and to choose the Gentiles), He looked toward the West — that is, toward Italy and Rome. Hence Christians, by the institution of the Apostles, pray toward the east, as though gazing on the face of Christ crucified; and hence their churches face the east, in which the image of Christ crucified looks toward the West, so that those who look upon and adore it necessarily face the east. So John Damascene, On the Faith, Book IV, chapter 13; St. Jerome, Bede, Germanus, Sedulius, Adrichomius, and others, whom Alphonsus Paleotti cites and follows, On the Stigmata of Christ, chapter 20, number 27. This is what Jeremiah, 18:17, foretold to the Jews: "I will show them the back, and not the face, in the day of their destruction." And David, Psalm 65:7: "His eyes behold the nations."
Furthermore, St. Bridget writes, in Revelations Book VII, chapter 15, that the manner of the crucifixion was revealed to her by Christ while she prayed on Mount Calvary, where she speaks thus: "Not compelled, but immediately and willingly, He stretched out His arm, and, with His right hand open, placed it on the cross, which those savage torturers cruelly nailed through, piercing it with a nail through that part where the bone was more solid; then also, violently pulling His left hand with a rope, they fastened it to the cross in the same way. Then, after stretching out His body beyond measure, they fastened His feet joined together to the cross with two nails, and they stretched out those glorious members on the cross so violently that well-nigh all His veins and nerves were breaking."
The same St. Bridget, in Revelations Book I, chapter 10, describes thus, from the Blessed Virgin's revelation, Christ's figure and bruises on the cross: "Then His eyes appeared half-dead, His cheeks sunken and His face mournful, His mouth open and His tongue bloody, His belly clinging to His back now that the moisture was consumed, as if He had no entrails. His whole body was pallid and weak from the flowing forth of His blood. His hands and feet were most rigidly stretched out, and drawn and conformed to the cross after the shape of the cross. His beard and hair were entirely spattered with blood. And so, while my Son stood thus torn and livid, only His heart was still fresh, because it was of the best and strongest nature." And in Book IV, chapter 70: "Then the color of death came upon those parts which could be seen for the blood, the teeth clung to the jaws. The ribs, grown thin, could be numbered. And His belly, its fluids consumed, was drawn against the back; and now with His nostrils wasted away, when His heart was near to bursting, His whole body trembled, and then His beard fell upon His chest." Finally Lactantius, Book IV, chapter 25: "Since," he says, "he who is hung on a gallows is both visible to all and higher than the rest, the cross was chosen the rather, to signify that He would be so visible and so exalted that all nations from every part of the world should run together to know and worship Him, etc. Therefore in His Passion He stretched out His hands, and measured out the world, so that even then He might show that from the rising of the sun even to its setting a great people gathered from all tongues and tribes would come under His wings, and receive on their foreheads that greatest and most sublime sign."
Now, as to the rest that pertain to the cross — namely the figures of the cross, its oracles, its use, glory, adoration, power, miracles, and imitation — see Gretser, On the Cross, Book I, chapter 39 and following, and St. Thomas, Part III, Question 46, with Suarez there. On the moral cross — that is, on the bearing of all tribulations, which every Christian must exhibit patiently, cheerfully, and bravely in every affliction — see Gretser, On the Cross, Book IV, which is wholly on this subject.
Tropologically: St. Chrysostom enumerates the fruits and praises of the cross thus in his homily On the Cross, near the end of volume III: "The cross, the hope of Christians; the cross, the resurrection of the dead; the cross, the guide of the blind; the cross, the way of the despairing; the cross, the staff of the lame; the cross, the consolation of the poor; the cross, the restraint of the rich; the cross, the destruction of the proud; the cross, the punishment of the wicked; the cross, the triumph over demons; the cross, the vanquishing of the devil; the cross, the pedagogue of youths; the cross, the sustenance of the needy; the cross, the hope of the despairing; the cross, the helmsman of those who sail; the cross, the harbour of those in peril; the cross, the wall of the besieged; the cross, the father of orphans; the cross, the defender of widows; the cross, the counsellor of the just; the cross, the rest of the afflicted; the cross, the guardian of little ones; the cross, the head of the living; the cross, the end of the aged." Then heaping up still more, he continues: "The cross, the light of those sitting in darkness; the cross, the magnificence of kings; the cross, a perpetual shield; the cross, the wisdom of the foolish; the cross, the liberty of slaves; the cross, the philosophy of emperors; the cross, the law of the impious; the cross, the proclamation of the Prophets; the cross, the announcement of the Apostles; the cross, the glorying of the Martyrs; the cross, the abstinence of monks; the cross, the chastity of virgins; the cross, the joy of priests; the cross, the foundation of the Church; the cross, the safeguard of the whole world; the cross, the destruction of the temples; the cross, the rejection of idols; the cross, the scandal of the Jews; the cross, the ruin of the impious; the cross, the strength of the weak; the cross, the physician of the sick; the cross, the cleansing of lepers; the cross, the rest of paralytics; the cross, the bread of the hungry; the cross, the fountain of the thirsty; the cross, the covering of the naked." St. Ephrem has similar things in his Sermon On the Holy Cross; and Damascene, book IV On the Faith, chapter XII.
From what has been said gather the various pious affections — but especially seven — which in the faithful ought to be stirred up by the reading, inspection and meditation of Christ crucified. The first is compassion; the second, compunction; the third, thanksgiving; the fourth, imitation; the fifth, hope; the sixth, admiration; the seventh, love and charity. It is to be woven in here from Luke 23:34 that Jesus, as soon as He had been crucified, prayed to the Father for the Jews and for the soldiers who were crucifying Him, saying: "Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do"; for it is clear from Luke that this happened before the dividing of His garments. This is the first of the seven memorable words which Christ uttered on the cross, by which — after so many and such great sufferings, injuries, and mockings, as though forgetful of them and anxious for the salvation of those who were tormenting Him — out of His breast, as out of a furnace ablaze with the ardour of charity, He hurled this fiery voice up to heaven, asking that they be forgiven. And He was heard for His reverence. For many of them, repenting at the preaching of Peter at Pentecost, were converted to Christ, as is clear from Acts II. Christ taught us to pray for our persecutors, to do good to those who do evil, and so to overcome evil with good. In imitation of Christ, St. Stephen, when he was being stoned, bending his knees, prayed: "Lord, lay not this sin to their charge; and when he had said this," as a swan having uttered its dying song, "he fell asleep in the Lord."
"For they know not what they do," — namely those who do not know that I am Christ the Son of God: for if they knew, they certainly would not crucify Me, nor would they dare to commit this monstrous sacrilege and deicide. They know not that I am the Saviour of the world and their own, they know not that I am dying for their salvation. Thus "from the impiety and malice of the Jews the sweetness and piety of Christ triumphs," says St. Cyprian in his treatise On the Passion of Christ.
The hieroglyph of love of enemies is a flint, with this motto: "A flint from which fire is struck, not without a blow." For a flint is a hard stone from which fire is commonly struck; and it is so named either because fire leaps forth from it, or because it has a silent fire within itself which is roused by friction — wherefore by the common people it is usually called the "living stone," as distinguished from those stones which are called "dead."
This flint is Christ, who is the cornerstone. For Christ poured forth upon the cross the hidden fire of His divinity and His boundless charity — yet not without a blow, since, struck by His crucifiers, He ardently prayed for them. For He Himself had once said: "I am come to cast fire on the earth; and what will I but that it be kindled?" (Luke XII). Let a Christian imitate Christ, and make himself a kindled flint, and one that kindles others; and whenever he is struck by some injury, as by the blow of iron and steel, let him cast forth sparks of divine love upon those who strike him, as Christ did.
They Divided His Garments, Casting Lots. — John tells this more fully in chapter 19, verse 23, saying: "The soldiers, therefore, when they had crucified Him, took His garments (and made four parts — to every soldier a part) — and also His tunic. Now the tunic was without seam, woven from the top throughout. They said then one to another: Let us not cut it, but let us cast lots for it, whose it shall be." Where St. Cyril says: "They claim the garments of the condemned as if belonging to themselves by right of inheritance" — as though they were the wages of their work in crucifying. Moreover, St. Chrysostom says: "They divide His garments among themselves, as is wont to be done in the case of the lowest and most abject of condemned men, utterly destitute." And a little later: "They divide those garments by which miracles had been worked; but then they effected nothing, since Christ was restraining their ineffable power."
This was a notable ignominy and affliction to Christ, that in His own presence He should see His garments insolently torn by the soldiers, and — with the die cast — divided by lot. But clearly He willed to die and to suffer for us in the extreme of poverty, nakedness and reproach, and not only to put off His garments but also His body and His life, that He might cover the ignominy of the nakedness of Adam and ourselves, and clothe it with His own ignominy, and thereby restore to us the garments of immortality, "that He might clothe us with life and immortality," as St. Athanasius says in his Sermon On the Cross.
Tropologically: He willed to teach us that we should strip ourselves of the superfluous things of this world.
Note first: Christ had a seamless tunic, which, as John says, was "from above" — in Greek, ἐκ τῶν ἄνωθεν, that is, "from the top"; and it "was woven throughout," that is, the whole was of one piece of weaving without a seam. Euthymius therefore says that it is likely to have been, as it were, an undertunic, serving in place of a shirt, lying closest to the body. He adds the opinion of the ancients (which he himself approves), that the same had been made and woven by His Mother the Blessed Virgin for the child Christ. Whence it appears, as a consequence, that this tunic grew together with Christ as He grew, just as grew the garments of the Hebrews during the 40 years of their wandering in the desert. This seamless tunic is today preserved with great reverence and venerated at Trier (Trèves).
Symbolically: St. Athanasius, Sermon On the Cross: This tunic was seamless; "so that even from this," he says, "the Jews might have been able to believe who and whence was He who had put it on; that He was the Word, coming not from earth but from heaven, and that the Word of the Father is not divisible but indivisible, and that, having been made man, He had a body not woven of man and woman, but contextured from a virgin alone by the grace of the Spirit." And shortly after: "For this was not their doing, but the doing of the Saviour hanging on the cross. For suspended as man, He was pursuing the principalities, He laid hold on the devil himself, and terrified the soldiers, lest they should rend the tunic — so that, this remaining whole, there might remain also that refutation which was made a little later against the Jews: because the veil indeed was rent, but the tunic of the Saviour was not even rent by the soldiers, but remained whole. For the Gospel always remains whole, while meanwhile the shadows are scattered."
Note second: The soldiers tore Christ's other garments, and divided them into four parts for the four soldiers who were crucifying Christ, and then cast lots "for who should take what," as Mark says. What these garments of Christ were, and how many, is uncertain. It is probable, as Euthymius says, that they were three: namely, first the seamless tunic, which was the innermost, like an undergarment; second, a tunic thrown over that one, similar to the one worn by ecclesiastics, which Italians and others call a "cassock" (sottana); third, the outermost garment, which covered and adorned the body externally like a cloak. For a breastplate, breeches, and leggings were not in use among the Jews, just as they are not today among many peoples of the East.
Symbolically: St. Athanasius, Sermon On the Cross, says: "The soldiers divide the garments of Christ into four parts, because He was bearing them for the sins of the world, divided fourfold toward the East, West, North, and South. When John saw Him clothed with these, he said: Behold the Lamb of God, behold Him who taketh away the sin of the world."
Verse 36: And Sitting, They Watched Him
The Greek adds ἐκεῖ, that is, "there" — namely hanging on the cross on Mount Calvary, as if to say: The soldiers together with the Jews were guarding Jesus, lest any of His disciples or supporters should take Him down from the cross, or lest He Himself should descend from the cross by a miracle. But by God's plan this was being done for another end, which they knew nothing of. For, as St. Jerome says, "the diligence of the soldiers and priests worked to our advantage, so that the greater and more evident power of His rising might appear." For the soldiers and the Jews saw Him dying on the cross: wherefore when afterward He appeared alive again to many, they must needs confess that He had risen from the dead by divine power.
Verse 37: They Set Up Over His Head His Accusation Written: This Is the King of the Jews
(Syriac: "the occasion of His death.") They set up a tablet, as the Arabic renders it, on which was inscribed the cause and charge of His crucifixion, namely that He was king of the Jews — that is, that He had aimed at the kingdom of Judaea, and had therefore rebelled against Tiberius Caesar. Whence the chief priests suggested to Pilate, as John says in chapter 19: "Write not, The King of the Jews, but that He said: I am King of the Jews. Pilate answered: What I have written, I have written," that is, "what I have written, I have written correctly and fittingly; I will not change or recall it." Pilate intended to signify the same thing which the chief priests suggested, but, with God directing his hand, he wrote it in another and different sense, and therefore truly wrote: "This is the King of the Jews," that is, this is the Messias or Christ. Hence the Syriac translates: "This is that King of the Jews" — "that," namely by antonomasia, meaning the King Messias; and the Arabic: "This is Jesus, King of the Jews," as if to say: This Jesus is being crucified because He Himself is the Messias, the Saviour of the world, who by God's decree must be crucified and die, in order to expiate and atone for the sins of the human race, and to reconcile men with God and save them.
Therefore this title was for Christ a eulogy of supreme honour: for it shows not only His innocence but also His dignity, namely that He Himself was Christ, the Redeemer of the world; and therefore it confounds the Jews as Christ-killers and will confound them and condemn them forever, because they compelled Pilate to crucify Christ, who was their own Messias, sent to them by God for this very purpose, that He might save them. Pilate therefore reproaches them by the title itself: and so he avenges himself against their stubbornness and importunity, holding them up and branding them as Christ-killers throughout the whole world: for Pilate knew well enough that Jesus was the Messias — for in that age He was called by all "the King of the Jews," longed for and awaited by all. Hence Origen: "This title," he says, "adorns the head of Jesus like a crown." And Bede, emphasizing the "over His head": "Fittingly," he says, "because although on the cross He was suffering for us by the weakness of our human nature, yet above the cross He was shining with the majesty of a King." For by this title was signified that Jesus was the Messias, and was already beginning to reign from the wood over the Jews, that is, over those who confess — that is, who acknowledge Christ by faith. Hence Pilate was unwilling to change it at the petition of the Jews. Whereby it was mystically signified that, while the unbelieving Jews were obstinately persisting in their perfidy against Christ, the Gentiles (such as Pilate was) would recognize and worship Christ as their King and Saviour.
Note first: it was the custom, in the Roman manner, to affix over those condemned to death a placard which would indicate the crime and the cause of death. Thus over St. Attalus the martyr they affixed this title: "This is Attalus a Christian," according to the testimony of Eusebius, book V, near the beginning. And thus here they affixed over Christ: "This is the King of the Jews," that is, this is the Messias or Christ. Whence it is further gathered that the cross of Christ was not a commissa cross — which has the form of the Greek letter T, such as is the cross of St. Anthony, but an immissa (passing-through) or four-cornered cross, so that upwards one-fourth part of the cross would project above, on which the title could be affixed.
Note secondly: none of the Evangelists fully and completely expresses the title of Christ's cross; but from all of them collated together it is gathered to have been this: "Jesus of Nazareth, King of the Jews." Franciscus Lucas says that in the Syriac language, but in Hebrew characters, it was written thus: ישוע נצריא מלכא דיהודיא Jescua Nazeraia malca dihoudaie, as the Syriac has it in John 19:19. Maldonatus however and others think it was this: "This is Jesus of Nazareth (as Matthew and Mark have it), the King of the Jews." Commonly however Gretser, Bosius, Pagninus and others omit the "this is," because that is sufficiently indicated by an inscription affixed over one who was crucified.
This title is still extant at Rome in the basilica of the Holy Cross in Jerusalem, where I have seen it and venerated it many times — but imperfect and halved. For in it nothing remains except "Nazarenus" written in Greek and Latin letters — written, I say, in retrograde order, beginning from the right side and proceeding to the left, as the Hebrews write. For this title, as John says, was written in Hebrew, Greek, and Latin — but in such a way that the Hebrew writing, being written in Judaea among the Hebrews, held the first and highest place in the title; the Greek, second; the Latin, third. For this reason, since the Hebrew was in this title written in the manner of that language, in retrograde, therefore the Greek and the Latin were also written in the same manner. Furthermore, the Hebrew letters in the title have been so eaten away by age that only a few strokes appear, but no whole and complete letter is seen which can be made out — as is plain in the engraving in which Jacobus Bosius exactly depicts this title, in book I Of the Triumphant Cross, chapter XI.
Verse 38: Then Were Crucified With Him Two Thieves: One on the Right Hand, and One on the Left
("with similar nails and spikes," says Nonnus on John 19:19.) For the punishment of thieves was the cross, so that Christ, in the midst between them, might seem to be the chief and ringleader of the thieves. This was what the Jews wished to signify, and so to defame Christ; but God overturned and reversed their devices. For, as St. Chrysostom says: "The demon wished to cover the thing itself, yet he could not. Three were crucified, one Jesus shone forth, that you may understand that all things came about by His power; and when three were crucified, miracles appeared, yet no one attributed any of them to either of the thieves, but to Jesus alone. Thus the snares of the devil were made vain, and in every way rushed back upon his own head; for out of the two, one was saved. Therefore not only did he not harm the glory of the Crucified, he rather added no little to it: for it was no less a thing that a thief should be converted on the cross and enter paradise, than that rocks should be split."
Symbolically: Christ in the midst of the thieves — of whom one, repenting, was saved by Christ, and the other was damned — represents the form of the Last Judgment, in which Christ as Judge will glorify the elect who will be on His right, and will damn the wicked who will be on His left to hell. So St. Ambrose on Luke 23, and St. Augustine, Tract 31 on John — hear him: "The cross itself, if you consider it, was a tribunal: for with the Judge set up in the midst, one who believed was set free; the other who mocked was condemned. It already signified what He will do to the living and the dead, placing some on the right hand, others on the left."
Verse 39: They That Passed By Blasphemed Him, Wagging Their Heads
That is, they cursed, reviled, and reproached the guilt and punishment of Christ's cross, and by wagging their heads they insulted and mocked Him. But these curses, insults and reproaches in this place were properly speaking blasphemies, because they were cast against the Son of God and against the Holy of Holies — according to that of Isaiah 1:4: "Woe to the sinful nation, a people laden with iniquity, a wicked seed, ungracious children: they have forsaken the Lord, they have blasphemed the Holy One of Israel." And that of David, Psalm 21:8: "All they that saw me have laughed me to scorn: they have spoken with the lips, and wagged the head."
It was an immense torment for Christ to be crucified, but a greater torment was to be mocked and reviled as He hung crucified. Hence Ecclesiasticus 7:12 warns: "Laugh no man to scorn in the bitterness of his soul." Hence also Christ complains, Psalm 68:27: "They have persecuted him whom Thou hast smitten; and they have added to the grief of my wounds." And Psalm 21: "They have opened their mouths against me, as a lion ravening and roaring." Great therefore was this cruelty and barbarity of the Jews against Christ.
Verse 40: Vah! Thou That Destroyest the Temple of God; Save Thyself: If Thou Be the Son of God, Come Down From the Cross
(Syriac: "destroyer of the temple"; Arabic: "O thou who destroyest the temple, and buildest it up.") "Vah!" is no longer in the Greek — what is otherwise called in Greek οὐά, and in Hebrew חאה heach (as the Hebrew Gospel of St. Matthew that is now in circulation has it) — but it is understood. "Vah" is the interjection of one who mocks, rebukes, insults, reproaches, and detests; such as among the Flemish is phi — as if to say: "Phi, phi, shame on Thee, crucified Jesus, that Thou didst arrogantly and irreligiously boast that Thou wouldst destroy the temple of God and on the third day rebuild it; show now that Thou canst do this by freeing Thyself from the cross. For if Thou canst not do this so small thing, how shalt Thou be able to accomplish that in the temple, which is so great and vast?"
Verse 41: In Like Manner Also the Chief Priests, With the Scribes and Elders, Mocking, Said
More venomous against Christ are the chief priests and the Scribes than the people: for they deride His miracles by which He made others whole, as if to say: Those miracles were not done by the power of God, but of Beelzebub or the devil; or certainly they were not real, but only fantastic (illusions), says Euthymius and Theophylact — for if they had been done by the power of God, God would certainly now save Him Himself, who is placed in the greatest affliction, and would free Him from the cross; and since He does not do this, it is a sign that He is not from God, but is an impostor and a false prophet. "For they wished," says Chrysostom, "that He should perish as a seducer, arrogant and boastful, and shamed in the sight of all," so as thereby to wipe out His name and sect utterly, lest any of His disciples should afterwards follow His teaching and worship and preach Him as the Messias — that is, they wished to abolish together with Christ the people, religion and Church of the Christians.
King of Israel. — The patriarch Jacob, wrestling with the angel — the vicar of God — and prevailing, was called "Israel," that is, "ruling over God" (Genesis 32:28); hence his sons and descendants, namely the Jews, were called Israel, that is, "the sons of Israel." Therefore "King of Israel" is the same as King of the Jews, that is, the Messias: for to Israel — or to the Jews — the Messias had been promised, as their future heavenly King.
Hear St. Bernard, sermon 1 on the day of Easter: "What kind of logic," he says, "is it that He should come down from the cross if He is King of Israel, and not rather go up upon it? Has it so slipped your mind, O Jew, that you heard that the Lord hath reigned from the wood — that you should deny Him as King because He remains upon the wood? Nay, rather, because He is King of Israel, let Him not abandon the title of His reign; let Him not lay aside the rod of empire, whose empire is upon His shoulder. If Pilate has written what he has written, shall Christ not complete what He has begun?" St. Bernard adds: "This clearly," he says, "is the craftiness of the serpent; this the invention of spiritual wickedness. The impious one knew how great a zeal He seemed to bear for the salvation of that people: therefore, most maliciously, training the tongues of the blasphemers, he suggested that they should say: Let Him come down, and we will believe; as if nothing now could prevent Him from coming down, who so greatly desired their belief. But He who knows the hearts of all is not moved by vain promises. For the malicious persuasion was aimed at this — that they themselves should not believe, and that our own faith in Him should also utterly perish. For, reading, 'The works of God are perfect' (Deuteronomy 32:4), how could we confess a God who had left the work of salvation unfinished?" St. Bernard adds a third reason, saying: "Lest He should give occasion for perseverance — which alone is crowned — to be stolen from us; and lest He should silence the tongues of preachers consoling the faint-hearted, and saying to each individually: Forsake not thy post. Which would undoubtedly follow, if they could answer: Because Christ forsook His own."
Let Him Come Down From the Cross. — Christ was unwilling to come down (although He could have done so), being provoked by so many mockings of the chief priests, because by the command of the Father He had to die on the cross, that He might redeem us from death. He therefore despised the reproaches of the impious, that He might teach us to do the same. So Theophylact on Mark 15: "If He had willed to come down," he says, "He would not have ascended in the first place: for knowing that men were to be saved through this, He endured to be crucified." "He did not care," says Origen, "to do anything unworthy on account of the injury of mockery, and to do what was said by them, beyond reason and order." And Augustine, Tract 37 on John: "Because He was teaching patience, He therefore postponed His power; for if, moved by their words, He had come down, He would have been thought to have been conquered by the pain of their insults." And again: "He postponed His power, because He willed not to come down from the cross — He who could rise from the sepulchre; but He published His mercy, because hanging on the cross He said: Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do." Finally St. Gregory, Homily 21 on the Gospel: "If," he says, "He had then come down from the cross — yielding, to be sure, to those who mocked Him — He would not have demonstrated to us the power of patience; but He waited a little while, bore the reproaches, endured the mockeries, preserved His patience, postponed the admiration of His power; and He who willed not to come down from the cross, rose from the sepulchre. For it was a greater thing to rise from the sepulchre than to come down from the cross; it was a greater thing to destroy death by rising, than to save His life by coming down."
And We Will Believe Him. — That is, "we will believe Him to be the King of Israel, that is, our Messias." They lie: for those who did not believe Christ when He raised Lazarus and other dead people, certainly would not have believed Christ freeing Himself from death; but they would have said that He had dazzled the eyes of the people by His own illusions, and that He had descended from the cross fantastically, not really, and that He was therefore a trickster and magician, as they said on other occasions — Matthew 12. Hence St. Jerome says: "A fraudulent promise — for which is the greater, to come down from the cross still alive, or for a dead man to rise again from the sepulchre? He rose again, and you did not believe: therefore, even if He had come down from the cross, you likewise would not have believed." So today heretics say: "We would believe the Saints, if they worked miracles"; but when their miracles are brought forth, they slander them as invented, or magical and fantastic.
Verse 43: He Trusted in God; Let Him Now Deliver Him, If He Will Have Him
(Arabic: "if He loved him"); FOR HE SAID: I AM THE SON OF GOD. — The chief priests and Scribes here use exactly the same words which David — and through David, Christ — predicted that Christ's enemies would use, and with which they would mock Him. Psalm 21:8: "All they that saw me have laughed me to scorn: they have spoken with the lips, and wagged the head. He hoped in the Lord, let Him deliver him: let Him save him, seeing He delighteth in him." Therefore by the very fact they testify that they themselves are those mockers of Christ foresignified by David, and that Jesus is the true Messias or Christ. For this whole psalm was dictated to David by the Holy Spirit concerning Christ and His Passion and mocking. Moreover, for a man placed on the cross and in the agony of death, no human hope remains, but only confidence in God: this — as it were the last anchor of salvation — the chief priests here try to tear away from Christ, as if to say: "Vainly hast thou hoped and dost thou hope in God; for now it is all over with thee; now upon the cross thou must die: there is nothing therefore for thee to hope in God. Vainly and falsely hast Thou said that Thou art the beloved Son of God: 'For if God wills' — that is, loves and delights in Thee — 'let Him now deliver Thee' from such great sufferings of the cross. But He will not do this; therefore it is a sign that Thou art not the Son of God, but an impostor, hateful to God." Thus they themselves revile and blaspheme Christ, but they try to drive Him to despair, as the devil does when he tempts men in the agony of death. But they err and reason falsely: for God loved Christ in the highest degree; and therefore willed Him to die on the cross, that afterwards He might glorify Him in the highest in His resurrection, and through Him save very many. Wherefore, knowing this, Christ was not at all moved by their reproaches, but went on fixing all His hope in God — and therefore in very deed obtained both things from God. Whence after these mockings, He produced new and strong acts of confidence in God, to teach us to do the same, which He immediately adds in Psalm 21:10, saying: "For Thou art He who hast drawn me out of the womb: my hope from the breasts of my mother. Thou art my God, depart not from me." The same thing the Martyrs said to the governors, when they were condemned by them to crosses, lions, fires, and beasts — namely that God was unwilling to free them, in order that through martyrdom He might give them a better life and a crown.
All these things about the chief priests and Scribes who would mock Christ, the Wise Man predicted in Wisdom 2:16, when he said in their person: "He nameth himself the son of God, and boasteth that he hath God for his father. Let us see, therefore, if his words be true, and let us try what shall happen to him, and we shall know what his end shall be. For if he be the true Son of God, He will defend him, and will deliver him from the hand of his enemies. Let us examine him by outrages and tortures; let us condemn him to a most shameful death: for there shall be respect had unto him by his words" — that is, God will look upon him and will rescue him, just as he himself has professed with his words. But the Wise Man adds: "These things they thought, and were deceived: for their own malice blinded them. And they knew not the secret things of God, nor hoped for the wages of justice (that is, of the just and holy passion and cross), nor esteemed the honour of holy souls." See what is there said.
Tropologically: sinners reproach Christ, who by their sins dishonour and blaspheme Him; to whom St. Bernard, in his Rhythm On the Passion of Christ, so introduces Christ speaking pathetically: To thee I cry, I who die for thee: / I exhort thee, I who suffer on the cross: / Behold the side by which I am opened. / And though great be the pain within and without, / Still more am I tortured, that I find thee ungrateful.
Moreover Zechariah, in chapter 13, verse 6, asking Christ: "What are these wounds in the midst of thy hands?" hears: "With these was I wounded in the house of those who loved Me." See what is there said.
Verse 44: The Selfsame Thing the Thieves Also, Who Were Crucified With Him, Reproached Him With
The Greeks — such as Origen, St. Chrysostom, Theophylact, Euthymius, and among the Latins St. Hilary — probably think that each of the thieves at first blasphemed Christ, but that one afterwards, having seen the patience of Christ, together with the darkness and other signs and miracles, came to his senses and believed in Christ. The other Latins think better — namely St. Jerome here; St. Ambrose, book X on Luke; St. Augustine, book III Of the Harmony of the Gospels, chapter XVI; St. Leo, Sermon On the Passion; St. Cyprian, Sermon On the Lord's Passion; St. Gregory, book XXVII of the Moralia, chapter XVI; Maldonatus, Franciscus Lucas and others — holding that by synecdoche a plural number is put for a singular: "thieves," that is, "one of the thieves." So in Luke 23:36, "the soldiers" are said to "have offered Jesus vinegar" — "soldiers," meaning one of the soldiers. For Matthew willed by "thieves" to signify not so much the persons of the thieves, as their condition — to show that Christ on the cross endured cruel insults from every race and condition of men, even from thieves, as if to say: All rivalled one another in insulting Christ so savagely and insolently, that even the thief alongside Him, now crucified with Him and gasping out his life, shamelessly cast reproaches upon Him. Luke adds that the other thief himself rebuked him, and said to Christ: "Remember me, O Lord, when Thou shalt come into Thy kingdom," and therefore heard from Him: "This day thou shalt be with Me in paradise" — about which more must be said on Luke 23:40.
Here, in the historical order, are to be woven in the words of Christ to His mother and to John, which were the third word of Christ on the cross, which John thus narrates (19:25): "Now there stood by the cross of Jesus His mother, and His mother's sister, Mary of Cleophas, and Mary Magdalene. When Jesus therefore had seen His mother and the disciple standing whom He loved, He saith to His mother: Woman, behold thy son. After that, He saith to the disciple: Behold thy mother. And from that hour the disciple took her to his own." Of these things, more will be said in their place on John.
Verse 45: From the Sixth Hour There Was Darkness Over the Whole Earth, Until the Ninth Hour
This darkness therefore began at noon, when Christ was crucified, and lasted for three hours, namely until the ninth hour, that is, until three o'clock in the afternoon, when Christ expired; at which time the light of day, coming from God, is wont to be brightest and fullest. Thus it might be clearly seen that this darkness was something unusual, prodigious, and supernatural — for, to be sure, the sun, the heaven, and all the stars, draped in mourning, lamented so unworthy a slaying of Christ, their God, creator, and Lord, and therefore withdrew their light and their rays from the earth and from those earth-dwellers who were slaying their God. So says St. Dionysius — whom we are about to cite — and St. Jerome here, who says: "It seems to me," he says, "that the brightest light of the world, that is, the greater luminary, withdrew its rays." And Cyprian, in his sermon On the Good of Patience: "When the sun, lest it should be compelled to look upon the crime of the Jews, it withdrew both its rays and its eyes." Likewise Chrysostom, in the Catena, from his Sermon On the Passion of the Lord: "The creature could not bear the injury done to its Creator: whence the sun withdrew its rays, lest it should see the deeds of the impious."
You will ask: from what did this darkness arise? Some answer that it arose from the interposition of dense clouds between the sun and the earth. So St. Chrysostom, Theophylact and Euthymius. But St. Dionysius the Areopagite, an eyewitness of this darkness, in epistle 7 to Polycarp, teaches that it arose from an eclipse of the sun — namely from the miraculous interposition of the moon between the earth and the sun. For he speaks thus, treating of himself and Apollophanes: "We were both together, and stood at Heliopolis, and, unexpectedly, we observed the moon casting itself in the way of the sun (for it was not the time of conjunction), and again, from the ninth hour until evening, opposing itself to the middle line of the sun, contrary to the order of nature. Recall also something else to the memory of Apollophanes: for he too knows that the very object seen by us seemed to rise from the east of the sun, and to reach the western edge of the sun, and then to go back again. And likewise the object and its withdrawal did not take place from the same side of the sun, but, so to speak, from the diametrically opposite side."
From these words of St. Dionysius it is clear that in this solar eclipse many miracles and prodigies concurred. The first is that it occurred at Passover, that is, at the full moon of the first month Nisan; but at a full moon a solar eclipse cannot happen, because then the moon is furthest from the sun — indeed it is in opposition to the sun. Whence a solar eclipse happens only at the conjunction of the sun with the moon, which occurs at the new moon; for then the moon, being close to the sun, easily places itself under it and eclipses it.
The second is that it lasted for three hours, whereas normally an eclipse of the sun is of brief duration, because the moon, which covers the sun, moves very swiftly and passes the sun. Here then the moon stood still beneath the sun for three hours — which was a tremendous miracle.
The third: the moon is wont to move from West to East, and therefore in a solar eclipse it comes under the sun from the west; but here it came under the sun from the east, as St. Dionysius attests.
The fourth: the moon did not proceed past the sun towards the West, but leapt back, and at once returned to its own place — that is, to the East from whence it had come — so that in the evening it stood, diametrically opposite to the setting sun, in the East, in that place to which it would have arrived had it moved on by its natural motion and not come to eclipse the sun.
The fifth: since the moon is smaller than the sun, it cannot cover and darken the whole sun; whence in a solar eclipse the sun is still seen for the most part, and diffuses much light upon the earth. But here the sun was entirely obscured, so that there was thick darkness upon the earth — such as were the Egyptian shadows brought in by Moses, Exodus 10:23, and Wisdom 17:3 and following; and therefore Matthew here calls it "darkness," not an eclipse. And this happened in this way — that the sun, in that part which the moon was not covering, by God's action withdrew its rays from the Christ-killing earth, as we heard a little above from Jerome, Cyprian and Chrysostom. So also the moon did not shine upon the earth, because, being placed under the sun, it was illuminated by it only on the upper side, while on the lower side, toward the earth, it remained dark: so that, since neither sun nor moon furnished any light to the earth, there had to be on earth the deepest darkness.
The sixth: stars were seen in the sky, and earthquakes happened — concerning which Phlegon the Gentile, a writer of the Olympiads and a freedman of the Emperor Hadrian, thus writes. Eusebius thus relates concerning him in his Chronicle, at the 33rd year of Christ: "Phlegon, who is a distinguished computator of the Olympiads, wrote concerning these things — in his 14th book saying thus: 'In the fourth year of the 202nd Olympiad a great and remarkable eclipse of the sun occurred, greater than any that had happened before. At the sixth hour, day was turned into dark night, so that stars were seen in the heaven; and an earthquake in Bithynia overturned many houses in the city of Nicaea.'"
The seventh: this eclipse and this darkness occupied the whole earth. Whence follows: Over the Whole Earth — "of Judaea," say Origen and Maldonatus, who limit this eclipse to Judaea only. Better, others hold that this eclipse was universal, and brought darkness upon the whole world. So St. Chrysostom, Theophylact, Euthymius and others. For this is plainly the meaning of the τὸ "over the whole earth." And hence St. Dionysius says that he himself saw this eclipse at Heliopolis in Egypt, and therefore is said to have cried out: "Either God the author of nature is suffering, or the machine of the world is being dissolved"; although Michael Syncellus, in his Encomium of St. Dionysius, maintains that he said: "The unknown God is suffering in the flesh, and therefore the universe is darkened and shaken by these shadows." Suidas asserts the same. Whence afterwards, while Paul was preaching at Athens and asserting that the unknown God was Christ, in whose death the sun had been darkened, St. Dionysius was converted to Christ — Acts chapter 17. See the matter discussed there.
Hence Phlegon, already cited, asserts that never before had such and so great an eclipse been seen. This eclipse therefore was a token of the divinity of Christ: for the sun, which is the eye of the world, darkened and as though dying, signified that Christ, its God and Lord, who is the sun of justice, was dying on the cross; and therefore, as He was dying, the sun and moon, and the heaven and the earth and all the elements, draped in mourning, lamented. Wherefore, during the whole time in which Christ was suffering and agonizing on the cross, they were darkened and shaken; wherefore suddenly black night was drawn over the lands — "And the impious generations feared an everlasting night," as Paul Orosius says in book VII of his History, chapter IV.
Symbolically: these shadows signified the blinding of the Jews. So St. Chrysostom, in the homily On the Cross and the Thief: "Today," he says, "among the Jews there is darkness, but among us night has been turned into day. For this is proper to piety, that it shines in darkness; impiety, however, even if it be in the light, grows dark. For the faithful night is changed into day, but for the unfaithful even the very light grows dark. And concerning the faithful indeed Scripture says: For the darkness shall not be obscured, and night shall be illumined like day. But to the unfaithful even day is turned into night, as Scripture says: They shall grope as the blind grope the wall, and shall walk at noon as in the middle of the night," Job v.
Verse 46: About the Ninth Hour Jesus Cried With a Loud Voice: Eli, Eli, Lamma Sabacthani?
(some wrongly read "Sabatani"). That is: "My God, My God, why have You forsaken Me?" Christ cites Psalm 21:1, in which the Hebrew has עזבתני azabtani; but because the Jews returning from Babylon corrupted their Hebrew tongue and brought in Syriac, therefore Christ, instead of the Hebrew azabtani, said in Syriac after the manner of His nation: Sabacthani. The modern Syriac has elmonosbactoni. From this it is plain that, with the passage of time, the Syriac language has been somewhat altered, just as Latin, Italian, French, German, and the rest have been altered.
Moreover, Christ continually praying on the cross, and offering Himself wholly to God as a victim for the salvation of men, toward the end of His life, when He was already about to die, recited the Psalm 21 already cited, which is wholly about the Passion of Christ, that He might show Himself to be that very one of whom that psalm treats, namely the Messiah; and that the Scribes and Jews might search and know that the cause why He would not come down from the cross, or be delivered, was this: that by the Father's decree He had to die on the cross for the salvation of men. For this David foretold in that psalm.
Impiously, therefore, Calvin (from whom similar things here have been transcribed into the commentary of John Piers) says that these are the words of a despairing Christ; for Christ, he claims, had to undergo all the wrath of God due for our sins, and consequently to feel the punishments of the damned, among which one is despair. But this blasphemy refutes itself. For if Christ despaired on the cross, then He sinned a great sin, and so did not satisfy the wrath of God but rather kindled it more. And how can Christ be said to have despaired, who shortly after, as He was dying, cried out: "Father, into Your hands I commend My spirit," as Luke has it, chapter 23:46.
Therefore Christ cries out that He is forsaken, not by divinity and the hypostatic union of the Word, nor even by the grace and friendship of God; but in this sense, that the Father did not rescue Him from the death now at hand, nor soothe and mitigate so cruel a passion in the flesh and in the lower part of the soul by any consolation, but permitted Him to be tormented with sheer sufferings and torments; that He might show how bitter and sharp was death for Him on the cross, and the separation of the soul from the body through the wrenching out of such great sufferings, and so violent a separation of parts so very dear to one another — just as, agonizing in the garden and sweating blood, He prayed: "Father, if it is possible, let this cup pass from Me." So St. Jerome, Chrysostom, Theophylact, Euthymius, and the others generally; nor does anything else belong to St. Hilary and St. Ambrose, when he says: "He cried out as a man about to die by the separation of His divinity." For they understand the separation not as of essence and the hypostatic union, but of aid, help, and consolation: for the faith teaches that in the death of Christ the soul was indeed separated from the body; yet the deity remained hypostatically united to both soul and body, as it was before. Add that Christ here complains that He is forsaken by the deity, because the deity provided Him with nothing else than to sustain Him in His torments, and to prolong His life for more and more fearful sufferings — indeed, to increase Christ's pains — because He saw that, though united to the deity, He was suffering such unworthy and dreadful things. So Laurentius Justinianus, in the treatise On the Triumphal Contest of Christ, chapter 8.
Symbolically: First, Christ here asks the reason why He has been forsaken by the Father on the cross, as if to say: What is the cause, My Father, that I must die on this cross? what fault, what evil have I committed? For I am most innocent, indeed the Holy of Holies. Whence the answer is added, Psalm 21:1. For Christ answers Himself: "Far from My salvation are the words of My offenses," as if to say: The offenses of men, which My Father has laid upon Me to be paid for and expiated — these take away My salvation and life, and drive Me to the cross and death.
Secondly, some in Theophylact think that Christ here speaks not of His own forsakenness and reprobation, but of that of His Jewish people, as if to say: Why, O Father, do You forsake Me — that is, My race, My people, that is, the Jews, who according to the flesh are My kinsmen — and cast them off from Yourself?
Thirdly, Origen thinks that Christ is complaining about the fewness of those to be saved and the great number of those to be damned, in whom the fruit of Christ's Passion and death perishes, as if to say: Why, O Lord, do You forsake Me — that is, those men who are My kinsmen according to the flesh, for whom I die — so that You save only a few of them and reprobate most? For thus You as it were forsake Me Myself: for You cause the fruit of My Passion to be small, abandoned, and as it were lost.
Tropologically: St. Cyprian, in the treatise On the Passion, thinks Christ said this so that we might inquire into the causes why the Father had forsaken Him: "You, O Lord," he says, "do not treat of Your death, do not contend over Your reproaches; but this You wish to be understood — what the cause of death is, what the gain is, that, both being known, sin and grace may appear; and how great the weight of each is, may be proved by the outcome of events, since for original death there could be no remedy except in the death of Christ, nor could any offering reconcile the outcasts and the damned to God, except this singular sacrifice of His blood." And after some intervening words — "The Lord was forsaken, that we might not be forsaken; He was forsaken, that we might be freed from sin and eternal death; He was forsaken, that He might show His love toward us, that He might reveal to us His justice and mercy, that He might draw our love to Himself, and finally that He might set before us an example of suffering: the way to heaven lies open, but it is steep and difficult; He willed to go before us with an admirable example, lest the way should frighten us, but that the amazing example of a patient God might stir us up" — so that, with Paul, Romans 8, in every tribulation we might confidently and joyfully say: "Who shall separate us from the love of Christ?" And soon after: "In all these things we conquer because of Him who loved us."
This, therefore, was the fourth word and saying of Christ on the cross, who consoles all the desolate, afflicted, and sorrowful, just as by this same saying He consoled St. Peter Martyr of the Order of St. Dominic. For when he himself, being visited by St. Cecilia, St. Agnes, and St. Catherine, and conversing with them in his cell, was overheard by passers-by and accused of admitting women into his cell, and on that account defamed and condemned to a harsh and prolonged penance, he complained before Christ Crucified, and said: "Lord, You know my innocence; why then, while I am silent, are You silent? why do You not defend me, but leave me so long in this disgrace?" Christ answered him: "And I, O Peter, what had I deserved, that I should be fastened to this cross for your sake? Learn from Me to exercise patience in whatever afflictions come upon you, since all yours cannot be compared with Mine." By this word Peter was so strengthened and gladdened that he chose to suffer yet more — indeed, would not have exchanged his disgraces for the scepters and crowns of kings. Wherefore Christ at last made his innocence plain, and turned all his infamy into glory. So his Life has it in Surius, at the day April 29.
Verse 47: Certain of Them That Stood There, When They Heard, Said: This Man Calls Upon Elias
St. Jerome and others think these were Roman soldiers: for it was they who held out the vinegar to Christ, as Luke teaches, chapter 23, verse 36. These then, since they did not understand Hebrew, when they heard Christ crying out "Eli, Eli," thought that Elias was being called and invoked by Christ; for they had heard from the Jews that Elias was to return at the coming of the Messiah.
Verse 48: Immediately One of Them Running, Took a Sponge and Filled It With Vinegar, and Gave Him to Drink
For they had already prepared the sponge, vinegar, and reed according to custom; for it was their practice to give the crucified drink from these.
And Immediately. — That is, after Jesus had cried "I thirst," as John explains and supplies, chapter 19, verse 28. For this was the fifth word of Christ on the cross, which He added soon after the fourth, namely: "Eli, Eli, lamma sabacthani." Hear John: "After this, Jesus, knowing that all things were now accomplished, that the Scripture might be fulfilled, said: I thirst. Now there was a vessel set there full of vinegar. And they, putting a sponge full of vinegar about hyssop, put it to His mouth. When therefore Jesus had taken the vinegar, He said: It is consummated." This was the sixth and next-to-last word of Christ on the cross.
A Sponge, — namely, that Christ might suck the vinegar from the sponge. For a sponge, being porous, drinks up abundant moisture in whatever liquid it is dipped; and when squeezed, it pours it back out: for they could not hold a cup to Christ, being thus raised up on the cross. This sponge is devoutly preserved at Rome, and is shown to the people in the Lateran Basilica.
Vinegar. — Note: To those crucified and other criminals it was customary in their torture to give wine, both to relieve the thirst with which they are wont to be tormented in such pain and anguish, and for strengthening, that they might more courageously bear the torments and death. But the Jews and soldiers, to please the Jews who were hostile to Christ, in place of wine gave Him vinegar. Whence Christ complains, Psalm 68:22: "And in My thirst they gave Me vinegar to drink." Lyranus adds that, since Solomon had said, Proverbs 31, "Give strong drink to them that are mourning," etc., "therefore, on occasion of this word, the elders of the Jews decreed that those condemned to death should be given aromatic wine to drink, so that they might more easily bear their suffering. Now at Jerusalem there were devout matrons who out of devotion procured this wine; but the Jews took for themselves this wine given for Christ and the two others, and in its place they set vinegar mixed with gall."
Therefore, first, they gave Him vinegar for mockery, since they were "mocking Him," as Luke says, chapter 23, 36; secondly, for torment, that in His thirst they might torture Him not with a sweet and pleasant drink but with one sharp and acid; thirdly, that they might not so much extinguish His thirst as increase it: for vinegar, though at first it seems to relieve thirst, soon increases it, and being dry, dries up greatly; fourthly, Baronius thinks the vinegar was given to Christ to prolong His life by constricting and staunching the blood, and strengthening the stomach and other members along with hyssop, so that His torture might be more prolonged and more violent. On the contrary, Theophylact, Cajetan, Jansenius, Toletus, Franciscus Lucas, Barradius, Emmanuel Sa, and others think the vinegar was given to Christ to hasten His death, and that by the guards, who in their hunger wished to return home to dinner: for it was now the third hour of the afternoon; that is, that the bitterness of the vinegar might more quickly dispatch Him, says Theophylact; for vinegar has power to penetrate and to instill its bitterness and malignity into all the members, wounds, and stripes. So St. Hilary, Chrysostom, and Nonnus, in chapter 19 of John, who calls this vinegar "a most sharp drink, and a thirst-provoking brine," likewise "vinegar of destruction mixed with hyssop."
Symbolically: the vinegar signifies the malice which sinners display toward Christ, as the Jews did. Whence St. Augustine, in chapter 19 of John: "Give," he says, "what you are, Jews: for you were then degenerating from the wine of the Patriarchs and Prophets, and being as it were a vessel full of vinegar, that is, having a heart full of iniquity, and like a sponge fraudulent with cavernous and winding hiding-places."
Again, Christ by drinking the vinegar turned it for us into wine, since by this He merited to turn our vices into virtues, our infirmities into glory. Whence St. Hilary: "The wine," he says, "which soured in Adam, is the honor or strength of immortality: He drank, therefore, transfusing into Himself, into the communion of immortality, those things which in us had become corrupted." And Remigius: "The vinegar represents the Jews degenerating from their fathers; the sponge, fraudulent hearts; the reed, Sacred Scripture, which was fulfilled by this deed."
And Put It on a Reed. — In Greek καλάμῳ, that is, on a calamus: now calamus means not only a reed, but also the stalk or shoot of any seed or herb. Hence we speak of the calamus or stalk of wheat, oats, barley, hyssop. Hence St. John, chapter 19, 29, asserts that this calamus was of hyssop, saying: "But they, putting a sponge full of vinegar about hyssop;" where the Greek word is περιθέντες, which the Vulgate here translates "put upon." Hence the Syriac, in John chapter 19, translates: They filled it with vinegar, and placed it upon hyssop; and the Arabic: And they filled a sponge with vinegar, and placed it upon a reed. Therefore the reed or calamus by which they held out the sponge of vinegar to Christ was hyssop itself. For the cross was not high, so a small reed held in an outstretched arm by a man could bring the sponge to Christ's mouth. And in Palestine garden hyssop grows higher than in Europe. I say garden hyssop, for on walls, being dry, it is low, as is plain from 3 Kings 4:33. Indeed, Dodonaeus writes thus of our common hyssop, book IV On Plants, chapter 19, in Pemptas I: "Hyssop raises up stalks about nine inches long, or higher, hard and woody, divided into several little branches, clothed from bottom to top with oblong leaves, like those of polygonum or lavender." Clusius adds that hyssops are found a foot and a half high; their tops, in a man's outstretched arms, can reach the mouth of the crucified. Hence Euthymius, Chrysostom, Theophylact, Lyranus, St. Thomas, Titelmann, Dionysius the Carthusian, Barradius, and others think that the reed on which the sponge of vinegar was placed, to be brought to Christ's mouth, as Matthew and Mark say, was none other than hyssop, as John explains.
Some suspect that in John one should read ὑσσῷ instead of ὑσσώπῳ, that is, a javelin or spear like a reed, which, being long, could easily reach the mouth of the crucified Christ; but all the copies have ὑσσώπῳ, not ὑσσῷ. Others with St. Augustine think that the sponge of vinegar was placed on hyssop, and then both were placed on a reed. Others think that the juice pressed from hyssop was mixed with vinegar, taken up with the sponge, and placed on the reed.
However it may be, it is certain that the sponge was placed on hyssop, whether the hyssop was the reed itself, or was distinct from it and placed upon the reed.
They used hyssop, first, because hyssop is customarily used with wine and vinegar: whence Columella, book XII, chapter 35, and Pliny, book XIV, chapter 16, affirm that a wine is made by pounding hyssop and throwing it into wine, which is called hyssopites; secondly, because hyssop applied to the nostrils strengthens and calls back the fleeing spirit; thirdly, because hyssop staunches blood; fourthly, because hyssop cleanses the breast and throat, and is a remedy for other diseases and wounds. For Galen teaches that hyssop mixed with vinegar restores spirit and strength to the exhausted. The soldiers, therefore, here tied hyssop around the sponge, lest the vinegar should slip out of the sponge, but that, flowing or dripping out of it, it might be caught in the bunch of hyssop, so that Christ might suck up both the juice of the hyssop and the vinegar out of the sponge, and so recover spirit and strength. For doctors everywhere attribute to hyssop an internal power of cleansing, especially of the lungs, of bringing back those who have fainted, and of soothing pains of the breast. See Dioscorides, book III, chapter 26; Johannes Ruellius, book III On Plants, chapter 24; Dodonaeus, Pemptas I, book IV, chapter 19.
For this reason, long ago in the old law, expiation for the cleansing of a leper was made by means of hyssop, Leviticus 14:49. Likewise in the sacrifice for sin, and in the sprinkling of the lustral water made through the ashes of a red heifer strained with hyssop, Numbers 19:6. Hyssop, therefore, was a type of the blood of Christ, which wonderfully cleanses, refreshes, and renews all the faithful. Hence St. Augustine, on chapter 19 of John, verse 29: "Hyssop," he says, "a lowly herb that cleanses the breast, signifies the humility of Christ; for by Christ's humility we are cleansed: this the Jews surrounded Him with, and they thought they had outwitted Him."
Verse 49: The Others Said: Let Be, Let Us See Whether Elias Will Come to Deliver Him
"Let be," that is, "Let us leave off," as Mark has it, chapter 15, and the Syriac, Arabic, and some Latin codices have here, as if to say, "Leave off," that is, be silent, be still, wait: leave off other matters, that you may give your whole attention to Jesus, and see whether Elias comes — invoked by Him — to deliver Him. They hesitate and doubt whether Elias will come, because from the darkness and other miracles which they saw during the Passion of Christ they doubted whether Christ was the Messiah, whose forerunner would be Elias, as not only Christians but also Jews believe, from whom these Roman soldiers had learned the same thing.
You will say: Mark, chapter 15, verse 36, says that it was not the soldiers, but the man who offered vinegar to Christ, who said, "Let be." For thus he has it: "He gave Him drink, saying: Let be, let us see whether Elias will come to take Him down." I reply: Some Latin and Greek codices, as well as the Syriac in Mark, for λέγων, that is, "saying," have λέγοντες, that is, "they said: Let be," as Matthew has it, whom Mark usually imitates. Mark therefore said the same thing as Matthew — namely, that the soldiers said this to the one offering the vinegar; "Let be," according to the sense to be given presently. But since generally the Latin and Greek codices in Mark have "saying: Let be," we shall more truly say with Euthymius, St. Augustine, book III On the Agreement, chapter 17, and others, that both happened: namely, that both the soldiers and the one offering the vinegar to Christ said, "Let be," or "Leave off;" for when the soldiers shouted to the one offering vinegar to Christ: "Let be," he answered: "Let be yourselves too," which firstly can be explained generally and plainly, according to the sense given at the start, as if to say: Leave off other things and set them aside, in order to attend and see whether Elias is coming to deliver Jesus. Secondly, more particularly, the soldiers said to the one offering vinegar to Christ: "Let be," that is, Stop, do not give vinegar to Jesus, lest He die the more quickly from it, since vinegar hastens the death of condemned men; but rather: let Him live, so that we may see whether Elias comes to take Him down, and so satisfy our curiosity; the man offering the vinegar in turn answers the soldiers: "You too leave off," and let me hold out vinegar to the thirsting Jesus, lest He die of thirst; but rather, drinking it, may He live on, so that we too may see whether Elias comes to deliver Him. So Jansenius. Thirdly, the soldiers say to the one who was offering vinegar to Christ: "Let be," that is, be quiet, do not approach Jesus and trouble Him, so that we may see whether Elias comes to deliver Him. For they thought that Elias would come to Jesus if He were alone; for they believed Elias would not mingle with other men and manifest Himself. In turn, the one offering the vinegar to Christ answers: "Leave off, you too," that is, stop shouting, lest by your shouting you keep Elias from coming to Jesus; or: Let Him be, as the Arabic translates, that is, let Christ be, do not disturb and vex Him lest He die, so that we may see whether Elias will come to deliver Him. So Barradius. Or, as if to say: Allow me still to mock Jesus in this way, by holding out vinegar to Him in His thirst: so we shall more easily see whether Elias comes, for the more Jesus is vexed, the more quickly Elias will run up, if indeed He should wish to help Him; as if to say: What I am doing is no hindrance to Elias's coming; rather, it will even hasten His coming. So Franciscus Lucas. Fourthly, others expound thus: Since the others were saying to the one offering the vinegar: "Let be," that is, Stop, do not hold out vinegar to Him and thus hasten His death, so that we may see whether Elias comes to deliver Him; the one offering it answered: "Leave off," that is, Allow me to give vinegar to Jesus; in this way I shall hasten His death for Him, and we shall see whether Elias is going to deliver Him — as if to say: I shall bring it about that Elias does not deliver Him, because I shall finish Him off with vinegar. For Luke, chapter 23, 36, signifies that the soldiers did and said these things mockingly, to mock Christ.
Verse 50: Jesus Again Crying Out With a Loud Voice, Gave Up the Spirit
"Again," because Jesus cried out seven times on the cross, and uttered seven dying words, namely: first, "Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do;" secondly, to the thief: "Today you shall be with Me in paradise;" thirdly, to His mother: "Woman, behold your son;" and to John: "Behold your mother;" fourthly: "Eli, Eli, lamma sabacthani;" fifthly: "I thirst;" sixthly: "It is finished," as if to say: All the ancient sacrifices, all the prophecies, all the types concerning Me and My Passion have now actually been fulfilled in Me; it only remains, therefore, that I die; seventhly: "Into Your hands I commend My spirit."
Crying Out. — In Greek κράξας, that is, "when He had cried out:" for He did not at the same moment both cry out and expire, but first cried out and then expired. And He cried out saying, as Luke has it: "Father, into Your hands I commend My spirit" — that is, My soul with My breath, O Father, I lay down; or, as the Greek has, παραθήσομαι, that is, "I shall presently lay it down," and shall entrust it as a deposit into Your hands, that I may receive it back from You as a deposit on the third day, when I rise. Hence the faithful, dying, use this verse, which first David used in his tribulation in Psalm 30, and then Christ Himself used here at His death.
Note that Christ cried out with a loud voice by a miracle: for the voice fails those who are dying, so that they can scarcely speak. For though Thomas, in the III part, Question 47, article 1, reply to 2, says that Christ preserved the vigor and strength of His bodily nature to the very end, nevertheless others more truly think that in Christ the strength had been sapped by so many labors and pains that He could not cry out naturally, but only by miracle: otherwise, He would have died not by the force of pains and torments, but by His own mere will, by separating His soul from His body; and consequently He would not have been slain, nor would He have satisfied the Father by this violent death for our sins and death.
He cried out, therefore, by supernatural powers, which the deity supplied to Him — and this, first, to signify that He, being God, was dying not forced by weakness and necessity, but freely by His own will. And this is what Christ says, John 10: "No one takes it (My soul) from Me, but I lay it down of Myself. I have power to lay it down, and I have power to take it up again," and that to this end, that this oblation and sacrifice of Christ offered for the salvation of the whole world might be altogether free and voluntary. Whence Victor of Antioch, on chapter 15 of Mark: "By this act," he says, "the Lord Jesus showed that His whole life and death had been placed in His own free power." So also St. Chrysostom, Jerome, Euthymius, Theophylact.
Secondly, He cried out to show that He was above man, being God. Hence the centurion, seeing that "crying out thus He had expired," as Mark says, said: "Truly, this was the Son of God;" because by crying out He was showing Himself to be the Lord of His own life and death, and therefore God. Thirdly, that by this cry He might declare His vehement love toward God, His religion, obedience, and desire for man's salvation. Whence Paul, Hebrews 5:7: "Who in the days of His flesh," says the Apostle, offering up prayers and supplications with a strong cry and tears to Him who was able to save Him from death (from which it is clear that Christ, along with His cry, then poured forth tears as well), was heard for His reverence." See what is said there. Fourthly, that He might show that He was dying confidently and securely, with a sure hope of resurrection and of the glory to be given Him by the Father on the third day, and to His faithful who were going to believe in Him. So Origen.
He Gave Up (Arabic: "delivered up") His Spirit. — Willingly: "for what is given up is voluntary; what is taken away is necessary," says St. Ambrose on chapter 23 of Luke. And St. Augustine, book IV On the Trinity, chapter 13: "The spirit of the Mediator did not leave His flesh unwillingly, but because He willed it, when He willed, in the way He willed; for the man had been mingled into unity with the Word of God. Hence He says: I have power to take it up again; no one takes it from Me, but I lay it down of Myself, and I take it up again."
So also St. Jerome, Bede, and others. Hence John also, chapter 19, says: "Bowing His head, He gave up the spirit," therefore He bowed His head, as Lord of death, says Theophylact. For other men, when they die, first expire, and then let their head fall. For the head, especially of one hanging from a height, being deprived of its life and vigor, falls by its own weight. So St. Cyril, book XII on John, chapter 76.
Hear St. Chrysostom, homily 84: "Bowing His head, He handed over the spirit, to show that He was dying not by necessity but willingly. He lived as long as He willed; when He willed, He gave up the spirit." "He bowed His head," says St. Athanasius, Question VI to Antiochus, "because death, fearing Christ, did not dare to approach Him: but Christ by bowing His head called death to Him; for before He bowed His head, it was afraid to draw near." For though the humanity of Christ, by the force of His sufferings, was failing and had to die, yet His deity could add strength to His humanity and prolong His life, so that only with the permission of Christ's deity could His humanity die. Therefore Christ died freely as God, and also as man, because His humanity could ask for this strength from His own deity, and, asking, would have obtained it.
Note: Christ expired on Friday, about the ninth hour, the hour at which Adam had sinned, so that He might expiate his sin. Likewise, the hour at which the paschal lamb used to be slain, and at which the Jews offered the daily perpetual sacrifice in the Temple, so that He might show that He was fulfilling these figures at the same time by His death. From this Christians are accustomed to pray at the ninth hour. Hence it is called "the ninth hour of prayer," Acts 3.
Symbolically and morally: Christ "bowing His head, gave up the spirit:" First, because bearing the sins of all, He was weighed down by their burden, and so His head, sustaining this weight, bowed down, just as porters of burdens are wont to bend their heads under them. For this burden of sin is heaviest of all. Secondly, to signify that He was dying out of obedience: He therefore taught religious and subjects to bow their heads and obey their Prelates, according to that: "He humbled Himself, etc., becoming obedient unto death, even the death of the cross," Philippians 2:8. Thirdly, that He might humble Himself to the Father, show Him reverence, and surrender His head — that is, His mind and will — to the Father's will in all things unto death, even death on the cross. Fourthly, to bid a last farewell to the world, and especially to the West, that is, to Europe and Italy, as if to say: Behold, My people, behold, I die for you, to whom I bow My head and send forth My spirit. For Christ, as I said above, was crucified with His face turned away from Jerusalem and toward the West and Italy, which He willed to adorn by its faith, by the papacy, and by the martyrdom of Sts. Peter and Paul. For leaving the Jews, He turned Himself to the Gentiles. Fifthly, to nod and bid farewell to His mother standing by the cross. Sixthly, to mark out, by the bowing of His head, the place for the lance with which His right side and heart were to be pierced through. Seventhly, to show that He and His Father by this Passion of His were reconciled to men, and that He was, as it were, embracing and kissing them as friends. So St. Augustine, in the treatise On Virginity: "Behold," he says, "the wounds of Him who hangs, the blood of Him who dies, the price of Him who redeems, the scars of Him who rises. He has His head bowed to kiss, His heart opened to love, His arms stretched out to embrace, His whole body exposed to redeem. Consider how great these things are; weigh this in the balance of your heart, that He may be wholly fixed in your heart, who was wholly fixed on the cross for you." Eighthly, to show that after His death His spirit would descend beneath the earth to the Limbo of the Fathers, that He might deliver them from thence. Ninthly, to show us the bowels of His mercy. So St. Laurentius Justinianus, in the book On the Triumphal Contest of Christ, chapter 20: "This head," he says, "while the Mediator endured the mockeries of sufferings and the tortures of death for men, He melted unto mercy, He bent unto grace, He bowed unto pardon." Tenthly, that He might embrace St. John, Magdalene, and the like who stood by His cross, and turn His face away from those who flee the cross. Eleventhly, that by bowing His head downward from the title of the cross, on which was written "Jesus of Nazareth, King of the Jews," He might show that He was declining the kingdom and all the honors and pomps of the world, and hint to us that we must do the same. Twelfthly, to show that His death was a sleep rather than a death, because of the resurrection to come on the third day. For thus those who sleep bow and recline their head to the bed, according to that: "In peace, in the selfsame I will sleep and take my rest," Psalm 4.
Finally, Christ, having finished the duty of His mission, by bowing His head to the Father as it were asked of Him blessing, and permission and leave to depart from the earth and return to the Father, as if to say: Behold, O Father, the office of Your mission, entrusted to Me on earth, I have faithfully performed, the work You imposed on Me I have completed, My course I have finished, I have done and suffered for the salvation of men whatever You commanded; I therefore humbly ask You to give Me leave to die, and through death to depart from the earth and return to heaven, and at the same time I ask for the reward promised to Me by You — the conversion and salvation of all nations, that they may through My Passion and death be saved, and be endowed with Your grace and glory, according to that: "Ask of Me, and I will give You the Gentiles for Your inheritance, and the uttermost parts of the earth for Your possession," Psalm 2; I have done what You commanded, give what You have promised.
Religious and priests imitate this, who, when they have completed the office of their mission, return to their prelates and with bent neck ask of them a blessing and their former rank and state. Morally, but vigorously, St. Bernard, in the letter to Guarinus: "What use," he says, "is it to follow Christ, if one does not attain Him? Therefore Paul used to say: So run that you may obtain. Fix there, Christian, the goal of your running and progress, where Christ set His own; He was made, he says, obedient unto death. However much, therefore, you have run, if you do not reach even unto death, you will not lay hold of the prize."
Verse 51: The Veil of the Temple Was Rent in Two From the Top Even to the Bottom; the Earth Quaked, and the Rocks Were Rent
When Christ the Creator dies, all creatures are disturbed, indignant, and shaken. "And behold:" hence St. Augustine, book III On the Agreement of the Evangelists, chapter 19, notes that the veil of the temple was rent as soon as Christ expired, so that it might be shown that the veil was rent because of Christ's killing. Luke therefore, who joins this event to the darkness that came on while Christ was still alive, uses anticipation.
There was a double veil in the Temple: one before the Holy of Holies, the other before the Holy, as Josephus plainly teaches, book VI of the Jewish War, chapter 6. The Holy was like the nave of the temple, into which the priests entered daily; the Holy of Holies was like the choir and the most sacred part of the temple; and therefore it was always closed, nor could any man enter it except the High Priest; and even he only once a year, namely on the Feast of Atonement, Leviticus 16.
Some think that, at Christ's death, the veil in front of the Holy was rent, because it was the outermost and perhaps visible to the people. So St. Jerome, Letter 130 to Hedibia, Question 8. But I say that the veil in front of the Holy of Holies was rent: for this was the most holy, and therefore it was called the veil absolutely, because it always veiled the Holy of Holies: for this was always closed, except on the Day of Atonement, on which the high priest entered to make expiation. So St. Leo, sermon 10 On the Passion; Cyril, on chapter 19 of John; Euthymius, Cajetan, Barradius and others here.
You will ask: Why was this veil rent? I answer: The ancients give various reasons. A literal cause is given by St. Cyril, Theophylact, and Euthymius, namely: that this was done as if the temple, mourning the death of Christ — who was its Lord and God — had, after the manner of the Jews, rent its garment because of the outrage of the deed; that is, because the priests and pontiffs, who daily worshiped God in the temple, and therefore ought to have been the first to acknowledge Christ sent from Him and to make Him known to others, had denied Him and killed Him; and therefore it portended, and as it were threatened, that they were to be deprived of priesthood, life, and salvation. So St. Leo, sermon 10 On the Passion.
Theophylact gives a mystical cause: namely, that it was signified that this temple was henceforth to be profaned, and with its sacrifices, ceremonies, and legal rites to be dissolved and abrogated — indeed, to be laid desolate, says Chrysostom. "The veil was rent," says Theophylact on chapter 15 of Mark, "God thereby making it manifest that the grace of the Spirit flies forth from the temple, and that the Holy of Holies (before inaccessible to all, and never seen) becomes visible and manifest to all." "For then," says Cyril, book XII on John, chapter 37, "Israel fell utterly from the grace of God and leapt far away from it, when with such fury it impiously killed its Savior." And St. Hilary: "The honor of the veil," he says, "is taken away along with the guardianship of the protecting angel." Hence St. Ephrem, in the sermon On the Passion of the Lord, hands down that at the time the veil was rent, a dove flew forth from the temple. For the dove is a sign of the Holy Spirit.
The allegorical cause was, that it might be signified that the veil of the legal ceremonies of the Old Law and of the Temple had been opened and fulfilled through Christ, so that henceforth not only the Jews, but also the unbelieving Gentiles, should clearly know God and Christ and His mysteries, which the Jews had foreshadowed through so many figures; indeed, that the worship of God and the Church was to pass from Jerusalem and the Temple to the Gentiles and to Rome. So Origen, Jerome, Ambrose, and others generally. Hear St. Leo, sermon 17 On the Passion: "To such a degree," he says, "was an evident transfer then made from the Law to the Gospel, from the Synagogue to the Church, from many sacrifices to the one victim who is God, that as the Lord sent forth His spirit, the veil was rent by a sudden force." Hear also St. Jerome: "The veil of the temple was rent, and all the sacraments of the Law which had previously been covered were brought forth and passed over to the people of the Gentiles. Josephus also relates that the angelic powers, once the guardians of the temple, at that time likewise cried out together: Let us pass out from these seats." He looks to the passage of Josephus, book VII On the War, chapter 12. But Josephus says that this happened not at the death of Christ, but thirty-eight years later, at the destruction of Jerusalem and the Temple by Titus.
The Apostle gives the anagogical cause, Hebrews 9:8, namely, that now by the death of Christ the way into heaven was opened, which before had been closed; for the Holy of Holies was a type of heaven, and the veil signified that heaven was veiled and closed, until Christ by His death tore this veil and opened the way.
St. Jerome notes, Letter 150 to Hedibia, Question 8, in the Gospel of the Nazarenes it is added that at that moment the lintel of the Temple, of immense size, was broken and split in two; and he cites Josephus. But Josephus says this happened at the destruction of the city and Temple by Titus, which destruction nevertheless took place a few years later in vengeance for the blood of Christ. And this is all that St. Jerome seems to mean.
And the Earth Quaked. — "The earth," that is, the whole earth: this earthquake, therefore, was universal, most great and most violent, so that the whole globe of the earth, convulsed from its very center, trembled and was shaken — just as the eclipse of the sun was likewise universal throughout the whole world, as I said at verse 45, as among others Paul Orosius teaches in book VII, chapter 4; and Didymus in the Greek Catena on chapter 9 of Job says that by this earthquake the earth was shaken from its center, and that this was prophesied by Job when he says in chapter 9:6: "Who moveth the earth out of its place, and the pillars thereof are shaken." Hence also Phlegon, the freedman of the Emperor Hadrian, whom Origen cites here, and Eusebius in his Chronicle at the year of Christ 33, writes that by this earthquake many houses at Nicaea in Bithynia, outside Judaea, were overthrown. Moreover Pliny, book II, chapter 84, testifies that under Tiberius (under whom Christ suffered), twelve cities in Asia were demolished by a huge earthquake. The same is asserted by Suetonius in the Life of Tiberius, chapter 48.
The literal cause of this earthquake was that by it the divinity of Christ might be signified, who is Lord of heaven and earth; for it was He who was shaking the earth. Hence throughout Scripture the shaking of the earth is attributed to God, and is a sign of divinity, according to that word of God to Elijah: "And behold, the Lord passeth by, and a great and strong wind, overturning the mountains, and breaking the rocks in pieces before the Lord." So of old Mount Sinai, when God gave the Law upon it to Moses and the Hebrews, trembled throughout, Exodus 19. Similar passages are Psalm 17:8, Nahum 3:6, and elsewhere. In the Passion of Christ, then, that word of Haggai 2:7 was fulfilled: "Yet one little while, and I will move the heaven and the earth."
Again, the natural, as it were, feeling of the earth was being signified — as though indignant at so great a crime committed against its own Lord, and desiring to leap upon the God-killing Jews so as to swallow them down into hell.
Mystically: there was signified the new earth and new world of the faithful that was to be established through Christ, according to that word of Isaiah 65:17: "Behold, I create new heavens and a new earth." For the old earth seemed by this quaking to be departing.
Tropologically: there was signified that through the death of Christ the earthly and stony hearts of men were to be moved to repentance. Moreover, if the whole globe of the earth was convulsed and shaken from its center, then so too were the seas and rivers: for the sea together with the earth forms one globe. Therefore, as Christ was dying, the sea roared with dreadful waves, seethed, and overflowed, so that by its roar it might speak of the indignity of its Creator's death, just as the sun and the other elements did.
See here how Christ, in the utmost depth of His self-abasement, displayed His supreme majesty and omnipotence in His own manner, lest He should seem to die under compulsion, and so that men might learn who and how great He was, who for their sake was enduring things so vile and unworthy with so great a condescension, that they might stand amazed and reverence Him. For, as St. Ambrose says in book V On the Faith, chapter 2: "Jesus is wearied by His journey, that He may refresh the weary; He asks to drink, that He may give spiritual drink to the thirsty; He hungers, that He may give the food of salvation to those who hunger; He dies, that He may give life; He is buried, that He may rise again; He hangs trembling upon the wood, that He may strengthen the trembling; He veils the sky with darkness, that He may illumine; He makes the earth quake, that He may give it firmness; He troubles the seas, that He may calm them; He opens the tombs of the dead, to show that they are dwelling-places of the living; He is born of a Virgin, that He may be believed to be born of God; He feigns not to know, that He may make known to those who do not know; He is said to worship, as a Jew, that He may be worshipped as the true Son of God."
And the Rocks Were Rent. — First on Golgotha, where Christ was crucified. Hence Cyril of Jerusalem, Catechesis 13: "Up to this day," he says, "Golgotha shows where, because of Christ, the rocks were rent." And St. Lucian, priest and martyr, rendering an account of his faith to the governor, says: "To these things the very place itself in Jerusalem bears witness, and the rock of Golgotha, which was split beneath the weight of the patibulum." Adrichomius relates the matter more fully in his Description of Jerusalem, number 252, saying: "Of this fact there still remains this striking proof on the rocky hill of Calvary: for there one can still see that fissure which was made, beneath Christ's left hand and on the side of the thief hanging on the left of the cross, at the death of the Lord — in which one can still make out the color of the Lord's blood." And a little later: "The width of this fissure is such that it could easily take in the thickness of a human body. Its depth is so great that when curious investigators lowered a plumb-line into it, they could by no means sound it, so that it is probable that it reaches all the way to hell: and just as by Christ's death the way to heaven was opened up for the right-hand thief, so through the splitting of this rock the way to hell was opened up for the left-hand thief (as of old for the rebel Korah). From this it is clear how true is what Jerome says of them: Christ, he says, leaves one on the left, takes the other on the right, just as He will do on the day of judgment: from the same crime, they receive unlike ends; the one enters paradise before Peter, the other hell before Judas. A brief confession won a long life; and a finished blasphemy is punished with eternal pain." Thus far Jerome, on chapter 15 of Mark — or whoever the author may be; for this does not seem to be St. Jerome of Stridon.
Moreover, not only at Jerusalem, says Baronius at year of Christ 34, number 107, but also in very many other parts of the world, the inhabitants testify by firm tradition that mountains were split by this same earthquake — namely in Etruria the mountain called Alvernia, and near the Campanian shore, the promontory of Gaeta; hence the dreadful sheer cliffs of rock on either mountain. That the rocks of Mount Alvernia were split at that time was revealed by an angel to St. Francis as he was praying there. Hence St. Francis's devotion to this mountain was remarkable, and on it he received the five sacred stigmata of the crucified Christ. The splitting of the stones therefore felt the death of Christ, so as to represent that cleavage which took place so cruelly and inhumanly between Christ's soul and His body. Nor did St. Francis ever look upon these fissures of the mountain without Christ's Passion immediately coming to his mind, so that he desired to be split, wounded, and tormented himself, that he might become a sharer in the sufferings of the Crucified, which he saw displayed to him in the lifeless stone. So Wadding in the Annals of the Minorites, year of Christ 1215, number 45.
Wherefore St. Ambrose rightly exclaims, in book 10 on Luke: "O hearts of the Jews, harder than rocks! The rocks are cleft, but their hearts are hardened; their unmoved hardness remains while the world is shaken."
Allegorically: St. Jerome to Hedibia, Question 8: "The rocks were rent — that is, the hard hearts of the Gentiles, which are as rocks; rent also were all the oracles of the Prophets, who themselves, together with the Apostles, received from Christ the Rock the name of rocks, so that whatever in them was shut up under the hard veil of the Law, might lie open, cleft, to the Gentiles. The tombs also, of which it is written: 'You are sepulchres outwardly whitewashed, which within are full of dead men's bones,' were opened for this reason: that those who had previously been dead in unbelief might come forth from them, and live together with the risen and living Christ, and enter the heavenly Jerusalem, and have their citizenship by no means on earth, but in heaven, so that dying with the earthly Adam, they might rise again with the super-celestial Adam."
Eusebius adds, in book V of the Preparation for the Gospel, chapter 9, from Plutarch, that under Tiberius there was heard near the island of Paxos a voice saying: "Great Pan is dead," and that thereupon there was great wailing among many people. Eusebius interprets this of Lucifer, as if he were that Pan who, when Christ died, died as it were, because Christ had taken from him his powers and as it were his life. Others, however, such as Barradius, say: Pan is Christ; for Pan (παν) in Greek is the same as "all"; and Christ, because He is God, is every good thing and all things, according to the text: "My God, and my all." The demons bewailed His death, because by it they had been despoiled of their dominion over the earth.
Verse 52: The Graves Were Opened, and Many Bodies of the Saints Who Had Slept Arose
And coming out of the graves after His resurrection, they came into the holy city, and appeared to many.
And the Graves Were Opened, — at once upon the death of Christ; for this is what Matthew here suggests, and it was fitting, in order that it might be signified that this came to pass by the power of Christ's Passion, and consequently that by the same power death was overcome, and life was restored to the human race. So Bede, Theophylact, and St. Jerome, who says: "The graves were opened as a sign of the future resurrection." And St. Ambrose, book 10 on Luke: "What else," he says, "does the unlocking of the graves signify, except the resurrection of the dead, when the barriers of death are broken through?" So too Hilary: "Lighting up," he says, "the darkness of death, and illuminating the gloom of the nether regions, He was stripping death itself of its spoils, in the resurrection of the Saints who were until then sleeping."
Nevertheless, these Saints did not come forth from the graves, nor did they rise again until after Christ's resurrection, as Matthew hints at verse 53, and Paul in Colossians 1:18, where he calls Christ "the firstborn from the dead" and the first-fruits of those who rise again; for Christ by His death merited resurrection both for Himself and for us. It was fitting, therefore, that He Himself, having conquered death, should be the first to rise as the victor and triumpher over death, and after Him and through Him the rest. So Origen, St. Jerome, Bede.
They Arose, — from death and the tomb, to life. The first reason was that Christ might confirm the faith of His own resurrection through these His companions, who served as heralds. For these Saints bore witness and kept saying: Christ is risen from the dead, and He has made us rise from it as well; believe therefore that He has risen, just as you see us brought back to life and risen from death through Him. The second reason was that in them and through them Christ might display the power of His Passion — namely, that by it the souls of the fathers had been set free from the lower world and limbo, and that in like manner, mystically, the souls of men which had been dead through sin, were now by Christ's grace to be made alive, and at length through glory to rise again, both in body and soul, to the blessed and eternal life, and so to be made blessed and glorified forever.
You will ask: Did these Saints die again after the Resurrection and return to their graves, or did they remain alive and glorious forever? Some hold that they died again, and will rise with the rest to blessed life on the day of judgment; for this is what Paul seems to hint at in Hebrews 11, last verse, when he says: "That they without us should not be made perfect." So Theophylact, Euthymius, Barradius, Franciscus Lucas here, and St. Augustine in epistle 99 to Evodius, and St. Thomas, Part III, Question 53, article 3, and St. Bridget in book VI of her Revelations, chapter 94, and book VII, chapter 26: "Know," the Blessed Virgin says, "that no human body is in heaven except the glorious body of my Son, and my body." But others more truly hold that these Saints are not dead any more, but rose again to immortal life: both because it was fitting for Christ to display the fruit of His death and resurrection at once in this blessed resurrection of the Saints; and because the souls of these men were already blessed, and therefore it was fitting that they should be united with their bodies only in a glorious and immortal state; and because their happiness would have been slight, and their misery far greater, if they were soon to die again — for they would have preferred not to rise at all rather than so soon to die again; and because it was fitting that these Saints, by their resurrection, should adorn Christ's own rising and ascending into heaven, and His triumph, as captives redeemed from death by Christ and set free from it, as spoils which Christ had snatched from death and hell; and finally because it is fitting that Christ in heaven should have Blessed ones, in whose sight and outward converse His humanity may take delight, lest otherwise it should be solitary and without the consolation proper to humanity. So Origen, St. Jerome, St. Thomas, Bede, Anselm here, Clement of Alexandria in book VI of the Stromata, Eusebius in book IV of the Demonstration of the Gospel, chapter 12, Epiphanius in heresy 75, and recent writers generally. Nor does the passage in Hebrews 11, last verse, stand against this, because the phrase "without us" does not mean "before the day of judgment," but rather that the ancient fathers had not risen before Christ and the Christians — that is, before the sons of the New Testament — as I there showed more fully.
Moreover, who exactly these Saints were who rose with Christ is not plainly clear. It is probable that first and foremost they were those who had some special relation to Christ — whether by kindred, or by some promise made to them, or by type and figure, or by faith and hope, or by chastity and sanctity — such as were Adam, Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, Melchizedek, and David, who were willing to be buried only in the land of promise so that they might be sharers in Christ's resurrection. Likewise Job and Jonah, who prefigured Christ's resurrection in themselves. Besides these, Moses, Joshua, Samuel, Isaiah, Jeremiah, Ezekiel, and the other Prophets. Hence Pineda, on Job 19:23, holds that at the same time Daniel and his three companions Ananias, Azarias, and Misael rose again: but against this stands the fact that their bodies and relics are shown at Rome in the church of St. Adrian, as our Lorinus observed on Acts 2:29, who also adds that neither Eve nor any other woman rose at that time, because (he says) it was fitting that the Mother of God should be the firstborn of those rising from the dead among women, just as Christ is among men. But Franciscus Lucas here, along with others, holds that Eve did rise with Adam, as being the mother of all; and he adds, with St. Epiphanius in the Ancoratus, that it seems rather more likely that at that time those rose who had but lately died, and who were more well-known witnesses to the Apostles and the other Jews; whence they could more readily persuade them that Christ had risen, and that He was the author of His own resurrection — such as were Zechariah, Simeon, and John the Baptist. But against the Baptist stands the fact that his head is shown at Rome and Amiens, his finger at Florence, and the ashes of the rest of his body at Genoa. Our Theophilus Raynaudus thinks that at that time the good thief rose again, in his book on him, chapter 13. And indeed no relics of him are to be found. However, Augustine, in his book Against Felician, chapter 15, says of him: "Whose body the common death has shut up until the future resurrection"; but St. Augustine says this in passing and while dealing with another matter. Besides those already named, many others rose — especially those whom the Apostle celebrates in Hebrews 11, who had died and were buried even outside Judaea; for Matthew says: "Many bodies of the saints that had slept arose." For it befit the liberality and magnificence of Christ that He should adorn His resurrection and ascension into heaven with a great crowd and pomp of Saints rising at the same time.
Tropologically St. Jerome: "These things," he says, "seem to bear the type of believers, who, having left behind the vices of their former errors, and having had the hardness of their heart softened, after being previously like the graves of the dead, have afterwards acknowledged the Creator, and risen through repentance to the life of grace."
They Came Into the Holy City. — That is, into Jerusalem, which is called "holy" because in it the holy God was holily worshipped in the holy Temple, and because in it there had been many Saints, especially the Prophets, and at last because the Holy of Holies Himself — namely Christ — had in it established His holy Church and consecrated it by His death.
And Appeared Unto Many. — Namely, to the Apostles and disciples of Christ, and to other Jews not yet converted to Christ, that they might convince them of the faith and resurrection of Christ, as being, so to speak, His witnesses and heralds: "That from their resurrection," says Euthymius, "others might be made more sure, and, thinking about His (Christ's) resurrection, reason that He who raised these up was much more able to raise Himself up."
Verse 54: The Centurion and They That Were With Him, Seeing the Earthquake, Said: Indeed This Was the Son of God
Many, with Baronius, hold that this centurion was Longinus, to whom Pilate had committed the custody of Christ, and who, on account of the miracles that happened at Christ's death, acknowledged Christ to be the Son of God and became a witness and herald of His resurrection. Therefore, abandoning military service and withdrawing into Cappadocia, devoting himself there to God, he was killed by the Jews and fell a martyr. His life was written by Metaphrastes, and after him by Surius under the day March 15. Hence Chrysostom: "Some say that this centurion afterwards was so strengthened in the faith that he was even crowned with martyrdom."
But Lucius Dexter, in his Chronicle at the year of Christ 34, holds that this centurion was C. Oppius, a Spaniard, about whom he writes as follows: "At this time there flourished in Spain C. Oppius, a centurion, the son of Cornelius, likewise a centurion, who preaches at Jerusalem that the dying Christ is the Son of God, amid the crashing of rocks colliding with one another and the day being veiled in darkness; and this centurion was the first among the Gentiles to believe as a Christian after the death of Christ: he was a Roman citizen, and being baptized indeed by Blessed Barnabas, was made the third bishop of Milan: an Apostolic man, who first of all reports to the Spaniards, his own people, the death of Christ and the astonishing eclipse, to the amazement of his hearers." Let the credit for these matters rest with Dexter; what their credibility is and how great, I have said in my preface to the Acts of the Apostles.
Seeing the Earthquake and the Things That Were Done, — namely the sun to be darkened, the rocks to be cleft, the tombs to be opened, and especially that Jesus "had expired while crying out," as Mark says. For from this, as God enlightened his mind, he recognized that Jesus was more than a man — that He was God, who as though Lord of life and death had expired while crying out, and in expiring had shaken all the elements and the whole world. The centurion had already heard that Christ had been condemned by the Jews and by Pilate because He had claimed to be the King of the Jews, that is, the Messiah, the Son of God. Now, seeing that God was bearing witness to Jesus by so many miracles, he recognized that He had spoken the truth and that He was truly the Son of God. God willed this, so that this centurion might confound the Jews and bear irrefutable witness to Christ.
"So that Israel's wrongdoing in unbelief might be heaped up," says Hilary, "the centurion and the guards, beholding this upheaval of all nature, confess the Son of God." St. Augustine, in book III of the Harmony of the Gospels, holds that this centurion confessed Jesus to be the Son of God not in a natural sense but in a spiritual one — namely, that He was exceedingly just, as Luke says, and holy and pleasing to God. But others more rightly hold that he confessed Jesus to be the natural Son of God, as I have already said. So St. Jerome: "From this," he says, "it should be considered that a centurion, in the very scandal of the Passion, truly confesses the Son of God, while Arius in the Church preaches Him as a creature." And he adds: "But now the last are made first: the Gentile people confesses, the blinded Jewish people denies, so that the last error becomes worse than the first." And Theophylact: "So is the order reversed, while the Jews kill, the disciples flee, and the Gentile confesses." And again: "Now there seems to come to pass what the Lord had said: 'When I shall be lifted up from the earth, I shall draw all things to Myself.' For having been lifted up on the Cross, He drew to Himself the thief and the centurion." And Bede: "The Gentiles, fearing God, glorify Him with the voice of open confession; the Jews, only striking their breasts in silence, return home. Hence rightly by the centurion is signified the faith of the Church, which, while the Synagogue is silent, confirms the Son of God." Finally St. Bernard, Sermon 2 On Epiphany: "See," he says, "how keen-eyed is faith! It recognizes the Son of God at the breast, it recognizes Him hanging on the wood, it recognizes Him dying. For indeed the thief on the gibbet, and the Magi in the stable, recognize Him; but the centurion recognized life in death. The thief proclaims Him King; the centurion proclaims Him at once Son of God and man."
Not only the centurion and the soldiers, but, as Luke adds: "All the crowd of those who were gathered together to that sight, and saw the things that were done, beating their breasts (as a sign of grief and repentance), returned home." They now begin to bring forth the flowers of repentance, so that when Peter and the Apostles preach they may bear fruit, Acts 2.
Here insert in its proper order what John relates in chapter 19, verse 31, concerning the breaking of the thieves' legs, and the lance piercing Christ's side, and the blood and water flowing from it. For he speaks thus: "The Jews therefore (since it was the day of Preparation), in order that the bodies should not remain upon the cross on the Sabbath (for that Sabbath day was a great one), asked Pilate that their legs might be broken and that they might be taken away. Therefore the soldiers came, and broke indeed the legs of the first and of the other who was crucified with Him. But when they came to Jesus, having seen that He was already dead, they did not break His legs, but one of the soldiers with a lance opened His side, and immediately there came forth blood and water" — of which things we shall speak in their proper place in the commentary on John.
Verse 55: There Were There Many Women Afar Off, Who Had Followed Jesus From Galilee
Among whom was Mary Magdalene, and Mary the mother of James and Joseph, and the mother of the sons of Zebedee. Matthew says this, both to celebrate the faith, constancy, and piety of these women toward Jesus — above that of the men — in that, while the Jews, Christ's enemies, looked on, they dared to stand by His cross and bear witness to their compassion for Him. Hence Euthymius: "See," he says, "how the order is reversed: the male disciples had fled, but the women disciples remained standing near." For women tend to be more devout than men: hence the Church prays for the devout female sex. Then, also, to signify that these women, being grave and pious matrons, were trustworthy witnesses of the things that Christ did and said on the Cross; and to show that they carefully saw to the offices of burial, and especially to the ointments for anointing Christ; and finally, to point out the patience and sanctity of Jesus Christ upon the Cross, which were so great that these women, by gazing upon, meditating upon, and admiring Him, could not be drawn away by any fear or threats of the Jews.
Many Women, — among whom the foremost was the Blessed Mary, mother of Jesus: for the others were her companions and followers, says Euthymius. Of her John says in chapter 19, verse 25: "Now there stood by the cross of Jesus His mother." "She stood," bearing all the sorrows by compassion which Jesus was bearing by suffering, and that with like constancy and fortitude. Hence St. Antoninus, part IV of the Theology, title 15, chapter 41, § 1: "The Virgin stood," he says, "so conformed to the divine will that (as Anselm says) if it had been needed, in order to fulfill the will of God by reasoned choice, she herself would have laid her Son upon the Cross and offered Him; for her obedience was not less than Abraham's, etc. In the end the sword pierced her soul — yet she did not pass beyond the bounds of modesty."
Moreover, how immense her sorrow was, Damascene points out in book IV On the Faith, chapter 15, saying: "The Virgin, who escaped the pains of childbirth when she bore Him, endured them at the time of the Passion." And St. Anselm, On the Excellence of the Virgin, chapter 5: "Whatever cruelty," he says, "was inflicted on the bodies of the Martyrs was light compared with thy passion, O Virgin." And St. Laurence Justinian, On the Agony of Christ, chapter 2: "The heart of the Virgin," he says, "became the most radiant mirror of the Passion of Christ." And chapter 17: "In body it was the Son, in mind the Mother who was crucified." And St. Bernard, in his sermon on the text of Apocalypse chapter 12 "A great sign": "Thy soul, O Virgin, was pierced so by the force of sorrow that we may not undeservedly proclaim thee more than a martyr, seeing that in thee the affection of compassion surpassed the feeling of bodily suffering."
Concerning the constancy of the Blessed Virgin, Metaphrastes writes thus from ancient records on August 15, and following him Baronius at year of Christ 34, chapter 11: "Those who have treated of these matters say that she from beginning to end bore herself with strength and constancy, using the emotion of her soul in a seemly and becoming manner, showing even by her actions that she was a mother — but wholly the mother of Him who kept the motion of His soul within definite limits: and when she saw her Son dead, she used her affection as was fitting; she even assisted with her maternal hands in taking Him down from the Cross, and received in her bosom the nails that were drawn out, and embraced His limbs, partly holding Him to her in her arms, partly cleansing His wounds with her tears; then, utterly poured out over all His body, she said with calm voice: 'Behold, O Lord, the mystery appointed from all ages has come to its end.' And handing the shroud into Joseph's hands she said: 'Henceforth it will be thy care, as thou givest Him over to burial, to lay Him honorably, to embalm Him with myrrh, and to perform the due rites for Him.'"
Afar Off. — You will say: John says that they were standing "beside the cross." I answer: "beside" means "opposite the cross," but so that they were not right up close but stood a little way off. For the watch of the soldiers keeping guard over Christ, and the dense crowd of people flowing in, did not allow them to come close to the cross; so they came as near as they could, in such a way that they could conveniently see and hear Jesus. See Adrichomius in his Description of Jerusalem, number 252, where he places their station fifteen ells from Christ's cross — which they now measure as eighteen paces. Others reply that at times they came up close, at times they withdrew a little farther, as necessity or occasion required. The Greek adds θεωρούσαι, that is, looking on and contemplating — both the wondrous patience of Jesus and the prodigies that were happening around Him — and turning all these things over in pious mind and meditation.
Ministering Unto Him, — sustaining Him along with His disciples out of their own resources. So Euthymius: "A choir," he says, "of women disciples gathered together with the Mother of God, and supplying the expenses out of their own substance." For, as St. Jerome says: "It was the custom of the Jews (and was not counted a fault, by the ancient usage of the nation) that women should supply food and clothing to their teachers out of their own property."
Among Whom (as the first, foremost, and as it were the chorus-leader of the rest) Was Mary Magdalene, — who, having been freed by Christ from seven demons and restored to soundness both of body and of soul, remembered and grateful for so great a benefit, clung to Him inseparably.
And Mary the Mother of James and Joseph. — Namely, Mary of Cleopas, or of Alphaeus — clearly, his wife. Hence Salmeron: "This Mary," he says, "was called 'of Cleopas' from her father; from her sons she was called Mary of James and Joseph; from kinship she was called 'Mary, the sister of the mother of Jesus'; from her husband she could have been called Mary of Alphaeus, although the Gospel nowhere calls her so." Others hold that Cleopas was not her father but the husband of this Mary, who was called by another name Alphaeus — about whom I spoke at chapter 13, verse 55.
And the Mother of the Sons of Zebedee, — namely of the Apostles James and John, by name "Salome," as Mark has it at 15:40. So Origen, St. Chrysostom, Theophylact, Euthymius, and generally the rest.
Verse 57: When Evening Was Come, There Came a Certain Rich Man From Arimathea, Named Joseph
Who was also a disciple of Jesus. He relates the glorious burial of Christ by the faithful, procured by the providence of God.
When Evening. — While the day still lasted, but was drawing toward evening: for Christ had to be buried before evening, when the Sabbath was beginning, during which rest was required.
Rich. — Because a poor man would not have dared to approach Pilate, the Roman governor, and ask for the body of the crucified, says St. Jerome.
From Arimathea. — This is the city, says St. Jerome in his book On Hebrew Place-Names, which at 1 Samuel 1 is called "Ramathaim Sophim," where Elkanah and Hannah dwelt, and where they begot Samuel. It is in the Thamnitic region near Diospolis; later it was called Rama, Aarima, and Memphys. It stood in a high place, whence it was called Rama, that is, "lofty." So Joseph came from Rama, but was a citizen and senator of Jerusalem. Hence St. Jerome in his book On Hebrew Names says: Arimathea is the same as "his height," or "he himself is exalted," as was the case with this Joseph.
By Name Joseph. — It should be noted that Christ entered into the world through Joseph, the Virgin's spouse: for He willed to be born only of a Virgin betrothed to Joseph; and that He went out of the world again and was buried through Joseph of Arimathea; for "Joseph" is the same as "increased," namely in the grace of God: for just as the patriarch Joseph was enriched with chastity and with piety toward his father, so Joseph the Virgin's spouse was preeminent in chastity; and this Joseph was outstanding in piety toward Christ, as though toward his own spiritual father now passed from this life.
Mark calls this Joseph "a noble decurion," where the Greek has βουλευτής, that is, "counsellor" or "senator"; for he who at Rome was called a senator was called a decurion in the municipalities. That this Joseph was a senator of Jerusalem is conjectured from the fact that he lived there; for there he had hewn out a tomb for himself. Maldonatus further gathers that he was present at the council of the Jews concerning the arrest and crucifixion of Christ, Matthew 26:4, but that he refused to subscribe or assent to the others. Hence, "some," says St. Jerome, "think that concerning him the first psalm was composed: 'Blessed is the man who hath not walked in the counsel of the ungodly,' etc."
Who Also Was a Disciple of Jesus. — This, then, was the reason that moved Joseph to bury Christ, that as a disciple to his master he might out of piety pay Him the due funeral rites and perform the obsequies.
Verse 58: He Went to Pilate, and Asked the Body of Jesus
Then Pilate ordered the body to be handed over. "He went in boldly," says Mark: for although he himself was a hidden disciple of Jesus through fear of the Jews, nevertheless, as Christ inspired him and the Blessed Virgin exhorted him, as I said at verse 55, he undertook so difficult a task boldly and without fear. "From this fact," says Victor of Antioch on Mark 15, "one can perceive the supreme constancy and fortitude of Joseph: for little was lacking that he should have spent his very life for Christ's sake, inasmuch as he was drawing upon himself on account of Christ the hatred of all the Jews." And St. Chrysostom: "Joseph's fortitude," he says, "is greatly to be admired, since for love of Christ he underwent the peril of death and delivered himself over to the hatred of all men," etc. The reason for his constancy is given by Luke and Mark when they say: "Who was himself also expecting the kingdom of God," as if to say: He believed in Christ, and through His grace was hoping for salvation and heavenly glory, and therefore on this hope he exposed himself to danger for Christ and asked for His body.
He Asked for the Body of Jesus. — St. Anselm, in his Dialogue on the Passion, says it was revealed to him by the Mother of God that when Joseph of Arimathea asked Pilate for the body of Jesus, he gave among his other reasons this — namely, that His mother was dying of grief. As if he had said: His mother is holy and innocent, the blow is grievous and sudden, and the crucified was her only Son; it is not reasonable that an innocent mother should die together with her Son; it will be some consolation to her to bury Him. Grant, therefore, to the most afflicted mother that she may bury Him. Moreover, it is likely that Joseph pleaded before Pilate the innocence and sanctity of Jesus — which was sufficiently known to Pilate himself — and so argued that His body ought not to be cast with those of the other condemned men into the valley of carcasses which lay beside Golgotha, but was worthy of an honorable burial. Let him therefore give Him to him, and he would see to His funeral rites fittingly.
Hear further what Gregory of Tours writes about this Joseph who buried Christ, in book 1 of his Histories, chapter 21, drawing (as he himself says) from the Acts of Pilate sent to Tiberius at Rome: "Joseph also," he says, "who after embalming Him with spices had laid Him in his own tomb, was seized and shut up in a cell, and was guarded by the chief priests themselves, who treated him more savagely (as the Acts of Pilate sent to Tiberius relate) than they had treated the Lord Himself: for He was guarded by soldiers, while this man was guarded by priests. But when the Lord rose, and the guards were terrified by an angelic vision, and He was not found in the tomb, at night the walls of the cell in which Joseph was held were suspended on high, and he himself was loosed from custody by an angel setting him free, and the walls were restored to their place. And when the priests reproached the soldiers and insistently required the sacred body from them, the soldiers said to them: 'Give us back Joseph, and we will give you back Christ; but as we have learned the truth, neither can you give back God's benefactor, nor can we now give back the Son of God.' Then, the priests having been put to silence, the soldiers were freed from this accusation." But these things are taken from the Gospel of Nicodemus, which is apocryphal, and therefore of uncertain and doubtful authority.
Finally, this Joseph is said to have been put by the Jews, together with Magdalene, Martha, Lazarus, and Maximinus, on a ship without sails or oars, and with God as his helmsman to have landed at Marseilles; and from there to have sailed to England, where he preached Christ and died; whence he is honored by the English as, so to speak, the Apostle of England. So Baronius at year of Christ 35, chapter 4; and Lucius Dexter in his Chronicle at year of Christ 48; and likewise what the old Spanish Breviaries say — especially the Asturicensian and Palentinian ones, which Franciscus Bivarius cites in the same place.
Then (having heard and approved Joseph's reasons just recounted) Pilate Ordered the Body to Be Given Up, — that by this means he might in some measure make satisfaction to Christ, whom he had unjustly condemned to death at the insistence of the chief men; and by dignifying his own deed he might cover up or excuse Christ's burial — since he had, as it were, been forced to condemn Him, as one whom he judged worthy of an honorable burial.
To Be Given Up. — Given to Joseph for a price and gold, says Theophylact — but this is not very likely, for the reasons already given, and because Mark says: "He granted the body to Joseph"; therefore Joseph received it as a free gift, not in exchange for a price: for it would have been excessive sordid greed for Pilate the governor to sell it. "To be handed over," then, means "to be given," as the Syriac renders it; but it says "handed over" because the body of Jesus had already been handed over by Pilate to the soldiers for crucifixion: he therefore orders that they themselves should give it back to Joseph. Mark adds in chapter 15: "And Pilate wondered whether He had already expired" — both because he was thinking only of the sufferings of the scourging and the cross of Christ, which had not yet killed the thieves who were crucified with Him; and because, as Euthymius says, Pilate expected that Jesus would die slowly, as a godlike man who would surpass the rest. Mark continues: "And having summoned the centurion, he asked him whether He was already dead. And when he had learned from the centurion (that He was dead), he granted the body to Joseph."
Verse 59: Joseph Wrapped the Body in a Clean Linen Cloth
The Syriac: "in a sheet of clean linen." For a most spotless body befitted a clean shroud. A sindon is a cloth made of finer and more delicate linen; so Joseph wrapped the body of Christ in this, as it were, a most delicate veil and linen sheet. The sindon is so called from Sidon, a city of Phoenicia, where it first began to be woven. Hence Martial: "Not even so in Tyrian sindon wilt thou be safe." For Tyre was near to Sidon.
First. The custom was to wrap the dead who were to be buried in a linen cloth, to bind the hands and feet with strips, that is with bandages, and to cover the face with a napkin. The form of Christ's sepulcher is described at length by Bede on chapter 15 of Mark, saying: "Those who in our time have come from Jerusalem to Britain report concerning the Lord's tomb that the building was round, cut out of the underlying rock, of such a height that a man standing within could scarcely reach the ceiling with outstretched hand. It has its entrance from the east, to which that great stone was rolled. In the northern part of this tomb the sepulcher itself, that is, the place of the Lord's body, was made from the same rock, being seven feet long and rising three palms' breadth above the rest of the pavement. This place, as is clear, is not open from above, but from the southern side along its whole length: whence the body was brought in."
Briefly Adrichomius in his Description of Jerusalem, no. 239: "The glorious sepulcher of the Lord," he says, "was a new monument eight feet long, which was distant from Mount Calvary one hundred and eight feet, and from Mount Sion one thousand paces, in a garden near Mount Calvary, which Joseph had hewn for himself in the rock. Joseph therefore yielded his sepulcher to Christ, and Christ was laid in another's tomb, namely in Joseph's." Theophylact gives the reason, saying: "He who had no house in life, has no sepulcher either, but is laid in another's; and since He is naked, He is clothed by Joseph." St. Augustine, Sermon 133 On the Season: "Therefore," he says, "He is laid in another's tomb, because He was dying for the salvation of others. Why should He have His own sepulcher, who had no death of His own within Him?" He adds: "Why even a tomb on earth, whose throne remained in the heavens? Why a sepulcher for Him who for the space of only three days did not so much lie dead in the tomb as rest as though in a bed?"
Anagogically: Christ signified that He and Christians are pilgrims on earth and are tending toward heaven as toward their fatherland, as citizens of the Saints and members of God's household. For this reason St. Anthony, St. Ephrem, St. Francis and others refused to have their own sepulcher, but wished to be buried in another's, after the example of Christ.
Here therefore was fulfilled that oracle of Isaiah, chap. 53, 9, concerning Christ: "And His sepulcher shall be glorious." See what is said there. Hence through so many ages down to the present there has been a frequent and devout pilgrimage of the faithful from the whole world to Jerusalem, to visit and venerate the Holy Sepulcher of the Lord. As ignominious therefore as the Passion and death of Christ were, so glorious was His burial; for the latter earned the former. Hence, by St. Helena the mother of Constantine the Great, a basilica was founded on this spot, which by its vastness and beauty far surpasses all others in the whole world: for it gleams with gilded coffered ceilings, is rich with golden altars, is supported by seventy-three marble columns, and comprises under one and the same roof both the place of the Resurrection and that of the Crucifixion; and in its middle it is rounded and open by an aperture, under which, in the lower part of the Church, the Lord's sepulcher stands under the open sky, to which the theater of Christ's Passion, Mount Calvary — then twenty-eight feet high — adheres like a choir; and one approaches it by sixteen steps, each of which has a foot and a half in height. For this reason Godfrey, Duke of Bouillon, the first Christian king of Jerusalem, wished to be buried in this basilica, and all the other kings after him. Here also distinguished men are ennobled and golden knights are created: so says Adrichomius in his Description of Jerusalem, no. 252.
For this reason the body of Christ in the Mass is placed only on a most pure shroud, which they commonly call a "corporal" from the body of Christ, which, after the manner of a sepulcher, it contains within itself, as Paschasius Radbertus says writing on this passage of Matthew.
John, chap. 19, 39, adds that Nicodemus brought ointments: "There came also," he says, "Nicodemus, who at the first had come to Jesus by night, bringing a mixture of myrrh and aloes, about a hundred pounds," so that he might pour it over the whole body of Jesus, and as it were embalm it. For myrrh and aloe, by their bitterness, preserve bodies from putrefaction. Mystically: Euthymius wishes that we should be fragrant with these ointments, when we receive Christ's body into our heart as into a new sepulcher. "Let us also," says he, "when we receive the Lord's body at the altar, anoint it with sweet perfumes, namely with the works of virtues, and with action and contemplation," etc.
Secondly. Baronius describes the manner of laying out bodies, drawing from Rabbi Jacob and Rabbi Moses. "Men," he says, "were accustomed to tend the bodies of men, and women those of women, in this way: first they closed the eyes and mouth of the deceased, bound them with a band, cut the hair, washed the body, anointed it with ointments, wrapped it in linen cloths, and so, having prepared it, laid it in the tomb."
Verse 60: He Laid It in His Own New Tomb, Which He Had Hewn Out in the Rock
And he rolled a great stone to the door of the tomb, and went away. John 19:41 adds: "Now there was in the place where He was crucified, a garden, and in the garden a new tomb, in which no man had yet been laid. There therefore, because of the Parasceve of the Jews, because the tomb was near at hand, they laid Jesus."
New. — Lest, when Christ rose, anyone else who had been buried in it earlier should be thought to have risen, says St. Chrysostom; or might be pretended to have risen, says St. Jerome. Mystically St. Augustine: "Just as," he says, "in the womb of the Virgin Mary no one was conceived before Him or after Him, so in this new tomb no one was buried before Him or after Him."
In the Rock. — "Lest, if it had been built of many stones, the foundations of the tomb being dug out, the body" could be stolen away, as St. Jerome says.
Finally, the sepulcher of Christ was in a garden, because Adam had sinned in the garden of paradise and had incurred the sentence of death. Hence Christ began His Passion in a garden, in a garden He consummated it and was buried, so that He might expiate and make satisfaction for that sentence; and that He might establish and plant a most delightful garden blooming with the flowers and fruits of every virtue, namely the Church. Moreover, according to Bede and Adrichomius, Christ's body in the sepulcher, just as on the cross, was so laid out that, with its head and face turned away from the East and from Judea, it looked toward the West, that is, toward Italy and Rome.
Note: As soon as Christ had expired, He descended in soul into the limbo of the fathers, and showed Himself and His Godhead to them, and so made them blessed. He likewise freed the souls detained in Purgatory, and granted them the first and universal jubilee. Hence He showed them His Godhead also, and made them blessed, as I have said on 1 Peter 3:19; but the demons and the ungodly men in hell He again condemned to perpetual Gehenna, as their Lord, Judge, Victor, and Triumpher. The soul of Christ remained in limbo until the third day, when, going forth from limbo with the fathers and the other saints, He resumed His body — which had lain for three days in the sepulcher — and rose gloriously, and then caused the fathers to resume their bodies and rise with Him. In what order, manner, and time all these things were accomplished, I shall tell at the beginning of chap. 28.
Moreover, the divinity of Christ — namely the divine Person of the Word — in Christ's death remained always hypostatically united both to His body in the sepulcher and to His soul in limbo: for what once It assumed, It never laid aside, nor will It ever lay it aside to all eternity, as the theologians teach.
And He Rolled (being helped by Nicodemus and their servants; hence the Syriac renders it in the plural, "they rolled") a Great Stone to the Door (entrance) of the Sepulcher, — lest anyone should carry off or steal away Christ's body. But it was done rather by God's counsel, lest, when Christ rose and by divine power the stone was pierced and He went forth, the Jews should say that Christ had not risen, but that the Apostles had stolen His body secretly out of the sepulcher and openly pretended that He had risen. For this reason God willed that Christ's body should be buried by men worthy of credit, namely Joseph and Nicodemus, and remain three days in the sepulcher, there to be closed with a great stone and sealed and guarded by the Jews, so that His death might be manifest to all, and consequently His resurrection from death on the third day. And of this resurrection and glory Christ's body in the very sepulcher gave a specimen and prelude, inasmuch as for three days it did not putrefy, but remained whole and unhurt, being virginal and holy and formed by the Holy Spirit, and such it endures for ever.
Verse 61: Mary Magdalene Was There, and the Other Mary, Sitting Over Against the Sepulcher
"The other Mary," namely the mother of James and Joseph; for he named only these two at verse 58. It appears therefore that the mother of the sons of Zebedee, namely Salome, whom he likewise named at the same place, seeing Jesus being buried by the men, as though having nothing further to bestow upon Jesus, returned home in sorrow, or led the Blessed Virgin home — though Metaphrastes, under August 15, asserts that the Blessed Virgin remained without ceasing at Christ's sepulcher until His resurrection, which she firmly believed and hoped would take place on the third day, as Christ had foretold.
Sitting Over Against the Sepulcher. — Because, as I have said, it was fitting that Jesus, being a man, should be washed, wrapped in linens, and buried not by women but by men. Hence they themselves, while the men were laying Him in the sepulcher, from propriety and modesty did not dare to enter the sepulcher, but waited until the men should depart, so that they might then enter the sepulcher and see the manner in which Christ was laid; and, now that the sabbath was pressing — during which the Jews had to rest — once it was past, they might return on Sunday at the earliest dawn and anoint Christ, as it will appear they did, in the following chapter, verse 1.
Verse 62: The Next Day, After the Parasceve, the Chief Priests and Pharisees Came Together to Pilate
The "Parasceve" was the name of the sixth feria, or Friday, which immediately precedes the sabbath, because on that day the Jews prepared food and the other necessaries for the sabbath, on which they had to rest from work. For "Parasceve," in Greek παρασκευή, is the same as "preparation."
The Day Therefore After the Parasceve. — That is, the day after the sixth feria, namely on the sabbath, these chief priests came together to Pilate. "He does not name the sabbath," says Theophylact, "because it was no sabbath as regards the Jews' frenzy." For they were raging like madmen against Jesus, to abolish His very name and memory. And their rage was sharpened by the fact that they had seen Jesus so honorably buried by Joseph and Nicodemus, as if that itself were a prelude to a future resurrection — either really to come, or to be feigned by the disciples of Jesus.
Verse 63: Lord, We Have Remembered That That Seducer Said: After Three Days I Will Rise Again
"Seducer," in Greek ὁ πλάνος, that is — as St. Augustine reads it, Homily 36, question 50 — "that vagrant," that is, that impostor. "By this name," says the same Augustine on Psalm 63:7, "the Lord Jesus Christ will be called, for the consolation of His servants when they themselves are called seducers."
After Three Days — not completed, but begun, that is, within three days, or on the third day after. Thus they themselves explain their meaning when they add: "Command therefore that the sepulcher be guarded until the third day."
Verse 64: Command Therefore That the Sepulcher Be Guarded Until the Third Day
Lest perhaps His disciples come and steal Him away, and say to the people: He is risen from the dead; and the last error shall be worse than the first. "Desiring," says St. Chrysostom, "to show that He had already before been an impostor, they extend and prolong their malice even as far as the sepulcher." These chiefs appear to have feared vehemently lest Jesus should rise again, and therefore they demand soldiers as guards, either to prevent the resurrection or to arrest Him as He rose and slay Him again. For the excuse they allege about the disciples stealing Him away was a pretext born of fear; for they knew that the disciples had fled in utter terror and dismay, and would neither think of nor dare such a thing.
And the Last Error Shall Be Worse Than the First. — By "error" they mean the Gospel teaching, which teaches that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God and Savior of the world, which Jesus had earlier taught while living. This then was the first error. The later or latest error is that He had risen from the dead; and this they say will be worse than the first, both because it will confirm the first — for if Jesus rose again, then He was the Son of God, as He Himself preached (for if He had preached falsely, God would not have raised Him); and because He will have many followers and adherents if it is believed that He has risen; and once this opinion is fixed in men's minds, it cannot afterward be torn out; and finally, because it will create hatred and envy against the chief priests and the Romans, for having unjustly killed Him; so that it will be the cause of many people turning from them and perhaps avenging Jesus' death by war or rebellion. Hence it would have been better not to kill Him than to allow Him, once killed, to be thought to have risen. For the devil, foreseeing the future Church of Christ — namely the multitude, faith, and holiness of Christ's faithful followers — was trying, through the Jews, to crush and smother it here at its very birth, as it were in the seed. But "there is no counsel against the Lord," Proverbs 21:30.
Verse 65: Pilate Saith to Them: You Have a Guard; Go, Guard It as You Know How
"A guard," namely of soldiers, that is, soldier-guards; as if to say: You have soldiers assigned to you by me and given to you for the crucifying of Jesus and for guarding Him on the cross until death; now I grant that you may use these same men to guard Him now that He is buried. "Guard" Him therefore "as you know how," that is, in the best manner and fashion that you know — as if to say: I leave the manner of guarding to your own knowledge and prudence; I am unwilling to involve myself further in this affair. "As though taught by the facts themselves," says St. Chrysostom, "he is no longer willing to cooperate with them."
For "you have," the Greek is ἕξετε, which others render as an imperative, "have," that is, "send for guards." Our Latin more vigorously renders it in the present, "you have"; for they already had the soldier-guards of Christ on the cross, whom Pilate had given them. Hence the Arabic renders: "With you are guards: go and close the sepulcher as you know how."
Verse 66: They, Going Away, Secured the Sepulcher, Sealing the Stone, With Guards
(Arabic: "closed.") They therefore fortified Christ's sepulcher with a double safeguard: namely, with a guard of soldiers, whom they ordered to watch continually and to surround the sepulcher, and with the sealing of the stone.
Sealing — in Greek σφραγίσαντες, that is, "sealing, signing," namely with a ring — not Pilate's ring, as St. Chrysostom suggests, but their own; that is, with the ring of the city of Jerusalem, or with the ring of their own supreme council, which was called the "Sanhedrin," lest the stone could be moved from the sepulcher by anyone and Christ's body be drawn out, without the thing being detected by the violation of the seal. Darius the king did the like to Daniel in the lions' den, namely "he sealed the mouth of the den with his own ring, and with the ring of his nobles," Daniel 6:17. Nicephorus, book I, chap. 32, and Bede, On the Holy Places, add that the Jews pierced both sides of the sepulcher-stone and bound it with an iron chain. Thus, while they strive in every way to block Christ's way out, as He was about to rise, they actually increased the miracle and the faith of His resurrection, the men themselves wringing a testimony for God. So St. Chrysostom: "A sure proof of the resurrection," he says, "has been furnished through the very things which you yourselves took care of. For if the sepulcher was sealed, there was no room for fraud or deceit; and if no fraud was committed, and yet the sepulcher was found empty, it is plain that beyond all doubt and controversy He has risen. See how even the unwilling aid the demonstration of truth!" And St. Jerome: "It was not enough," he says, "for the chief priests, the scribes, and the Pharisees to have crucified the Lord the Savior, unless they should guard the sepulcher, receive a cohort, seal the stone, and, so far as lay in them, oppose their hand to Him as He rose again — so that by their very diligence our faith might gain. For the more it is kept back, the more the power of the resurrection is shown."
Tropologically our Barradius: "From this deed of the wicked," he says, "let us learn piety: after we have received Christ's body from the altar into our breast as into a new sepulcher, let us keep diligent guard, so that by grace He may ever remain in it and never forsake us. Let us set watchful soldiers over it, that is, watchful virtues, which may drive sleep — that is, sloth — away from us; let us bind ourselves with more than an iron instrument, that is, let us fortify our heart with an adamantine resolution against sinning."