Commentary on Matthew 31–33

“Then Jesus came with them to a field called Gethsemane, and he says to his disciples: Sit here while I go there and pray,” and the rest. He had accepted the faith of the disciples and the constancy of their will devoted to him: but he knew that they would be troubled and would scatter. He orders them to sit in a place while he went forward to pray. And he took Peter, James, and John, the sons of Zebedee. Having taken them, he began to be sad and sorrowful, and said that his soul was sad even to death. Some hold the opinion that sorrow for his own sake could fall on God, and that fear of the coming passion broke him: because he said, “My soul is sad even to death”; and that: “Father, if it is possible, let this cup pass from me”; and again: “The spirit indeed is willing, but the flesh is weak”; and finally twice the same: “Father, if this cup cannot pass unless I drink it, your will be done.” They wish that distress from the weakness of the body clung to the Spirit: as if the assumption of flesh had infected that power of incorrupt substance with the dishonor of its weakness, and eternity had received the nature of frailty. If it is sad unto fear, if weak unto pain, if trembling unto death, it will now be subject to corruption, and the disposition of every weakness will fall upon it. So it will be what it was not: sorrowful from anguish, anxious from fear, terrified from pain: and so, eternity being changed into fear, if it can be what it was not, it could likewise at some time not be what is in it. But God is always, without measure of times: and as he is, so he is eternal. And eternity, remaining in the infinite, is extended into what follows as into what was: always whole, incorrupt, perfect, beyond which nothing that could be is left outside. Not itself in anything, but all things within it: able to bestow on us what is its own in such a way that nothing of what it is departs from it by its bestowing. But the whole sense of those who think that fear of death fell on the Son of God is this: they assert that he was not brought forth from eternity nor came to be from the infinity of the Father’s substance, but was made from nothing by him who created all things: so that he was taken up from nothing, begun from a work, and established from time. And therefore in him there is the anxiety of pain, therefore the suffering of the Spirit together with the suffering of the body, therefore the fear of death: so that he who could fear death could also die; and he who could die, though he will be eternal in the future, is not eternal from the past through him who begot him. If these had been able, through faith and uprightness of life, to grasp the Gospels, they would know that the Word was God in the beginning, and that he was with God from the beginning, and that he was born from him who was, and that this is in him who was born, which he himself is with whom he was before he was born: namely, that the eternity of the begetter and of the begotten is the same. Nothing in God, then, could die, nor is there any fear in God from himself. For God was in Christ reconciling the world to himself. But this whole speech must be looked into, so that, since we read that the Lord was sorrowful, we may find the causes of the sorrow. He had warned above that all would be scandalized. Peter, confident of himself, had answered that, even if the others were troubled, he would not be moved: and the Lord answered that he would even deny him three times. But both he and all the other disciples promise that, even if they were placed in death itself, they will not deny him. And going forward, he ordered his disciples to sit while he prayed. And having taken Peter, James, and John, he began to be sad. So he is not sad before he takes them, and all fear began when they had been taken: and so the sorrow arose not from himself but from those whom he had taken. And indeed we must remember that no others were taken here than those very ones to whom the Son of Man was shown coming in his kingdom, when, Moses and Elijah standing by on the mountain, he was surrounded with the whole honor of his eternal glory. But the cause of taking them then was the same as now. Accordingly he says: “My soul is sad even to death.” Does he say: “My soul is sad because of death”? Certainly not. For if the fear were of death, it ought to have been referred to that through which it was. But it is one thing to fear until something, another to fear because of it. And whatever is at the end does not make the cause, because it is put off until something which was begun by another. Above, then, he had said: “You will be scandalized in me this night.” He knew that they would be terrified, put to flight, would deny: but since the blasphemy of the Spirit is forgiven neither here nor in eternity, he feared that they would deny him as God, whom they were about to see beaten, spat upon, and crucified. This reasoning was kept in Peter, who, when he was going to deny, denied thus: “I do not know the man”: because anything said against the Son of Man is forgiven. So he is sad until death. So not death but the time of death is in the fear: because after it the faith of believers would be strengthened by the power of the resurrection. “And going forward, he fell on his face, praying.” He warns them to remain watchful with him. For he knew that, the devil pressing hard, their faith would be put to sleep: and he commands an equal watchfulness on those whom the same suffering threatened. Then he prays: “My Father, if it is possible, let this cup pass from me: yet not as I will, but as you will.” He asks that the cup pass from him. Does he say: “Let this cup pass me by”? For that would be the prayer of one fearing for himself. But it is one thing to pray that it pass one by, another that it pass from one. For in what passes one by, that person is exempted from the trouble of what passes: but he who asks that it pass from him does not pray that he himself be passed by, but that what passes from him go on to another. Was it possible for Christ not to suffer? Yet already from the foundation of the world this mystery of our salvation had been shown in him. Did he himself not wish to suffer? Yet above he had consecrated the blood of his body to be poured out for the forgiveness of sins. How then does he say, “Father, if it is possible”? And how, “Not as I will, but as you will”? So his whole fear is for those who were going to suffer: and therefore, since it is not possible for him not to suffer, he prays for those who would suffer after him, saying, “Let the cup pass from me,” that is, as it is drunk by me, so let it be drunk by them, without distrust of hope, without the sense of pain, without fear of death. And he says “if it is possible” because for their flesh and blood the terror is heavy, and it is hard for human bodies not to be overcome by its bitterness. And as for his saying, “Not as I will, but as you will”: he would indeed wish them not to suffer, lest perhaps they lose confidence in suffering, but that they earn the glory of his co-inheritance without the hardship of suffering. So he does not ask that they not suffer, saying, “Not as I will”: but that, as the Father wills, the firmness of drinking the cup may pass from him into them: because by the Father’s will the devil was to be conquered not only through Christ but also through his disciples. After this he returns to the disciples and finds them sleeping: and he reproves Peter, asking why he could not watch with him even one hour. Peter, out of the three, because he had boasted above the others that he would not be scandalized. And he indicates the causes of his previous fear, saying: “Pray that you may not enter into temptation.” This, then, was what he wished; and therefore he had handed on in the prayer: “Lead us not into temptation,” lest anything be permitted against us to the weakness of the flesh. And why he had warned them to pray that they might not come into temptation, he shows by saying, “The spirit indeed is willing, but the flesh is weak”: certainly not of himself; for this speech is turned to them. Or how is the spirit now willing of himself, if above his soul is sad even to death? But he commands watching and praying, lest they fall into temptation, lest they succumb to the weakness of the body: and therefore he prays that, if possible, the cup may pass from him, because all flesh is weak for drinking it. And again going away he prayed, saying: “Father, if this cup cannot pass unless I drink it, your will be done.” For the disciples who would suffer through the justification of faith, he took on himself all the weakness of our body: and with himself he fixed to the cross all the things by which we were weakened. Therefore he bears our sins and grieves for us: because, when the heat of faith is burning in us, and the battle of suffering must be fought against the devil, all the pains of our weaknesses die with his body and passion. And therefore the cup cannot pass from him unless he drinks it: because we cannot suffer except from his passion. But that, returning again, he found them sleeping shows that during the time of his absence many would be held by a kind of sleep of faith. But again he prayed, repeating the same: and returning, he who had commanded them to watch, who had rebuked them for being asleep, says: “Sleep now and take your rest.” After frequent prayer, after many goings and returnings, he takes away fear, gives back security, exhorts to rest, and now, secure, awaits the Father’s will concerning us, saying, “Your will be done”: because, drinking the cup that would pass into us, he would swallow up the weakness of our body, the anxiety of fear, and the very pain of death. That, returning to them and finding them sleeping, the first time he rebukes them, the second time is silent, the third time bids them rest: the reason is this, that first, after the resurrection, he will reprove them, scattered, distrustful, and trembling; second, when the Paraclete Spirit has been sent, he will visit them, their eyes heavy for beholding the freedom of the Gospel. For for some time, held by love of the law, they were occupied by a kind of sleep of faith. But the third time, that is, at the return of his glory, he will restore them to security and rest.

“And while he was still speaking, behold, Judas, one of the twelve, came, and with him a great crowd.” In all these things there is the order of the passion. But in the kiss of Judas this was the reason: that we might be taught to love all our enemies, even those we know will rage against us. For the Lord did not refuse his kiss. And by saying to Judas, “Do what you are doing,” he permits him, under the condition of this word, the power of his betrayal. For he who had it in his right to call against the betrayers twelve thousand legions of angels could much more easily have met the counsels and arts of one man. Accordingly he says to Pilate: “You would have no power over me unless it had been given to you.” So he gives power over himself by saying, “Do what you are doing”: that is, since the crime of the will is weighed with the odium of the deed, let him carry out in fact what he was already doing in will. One of those who were with him, drawing a sword, cut off the ear of the servant of the chief priest; and the Lord says to him: “Put your sword back into its place. For all who use the sword will perish by the sword.” So is this man already judged, since, using the sword, he will perish by the sword? But death by the sword is not usual for all who use the sword. For fever or some other mishap carries off many who have used the sword either in the office of judgment or from the necessity of resisting robbers. So the ear of the servant of the chief priest is cut off by an apostle: that is, by Christ’s disciple the disobedient hearing is cut out of the people serving the priesthood, and what was not hearing is cut off so that it may become capable of the truth. The whole crowd had come out armed with swords against the Lord. He ordered the sword to be put away: because he would destroy them not with a human sword but with the sword of his mouth. Otherwise, if according to his sentence everyone using the sword were to perish by the sword, the sword would rightly be drawn for the death of those who were using it for crime. The rest of the events keep their order. False witnesses are sought: the priest, ignorant of the very law in which he gloried, asks even under oath whether he is the Christ: as if the law and the prophets spoke of him in secret. Indeed this very man confessed Christ unwillingly, the Lord saying: “You have said it.” Hearing his majesty, he tore his garment, tearing, that is, the very veil of the law by which he was covered. In the slaps and spitting, to complete the humility of the man, every kind of insult was exercised against him. But we must carefully consider on what condition Peter denied: although this was treated above. For first he says that he does not understand what she is saying; next, that he has not been with him; but the third time, that he does not know the man. And truly he was now almost without guilt denying the man, whom he had first recognized as the Son of God: yet because, from weakness of the flesh, he had been even doubtful, he wept most bitterly, recalling that, even though warned, he could not avoid the guilt of this trembling. Then he is handed over to Pilate, the judge of the nations. For he could not be judged guilty from the law, being himself without guile and sin. “Then Judas, who had betrayed him, seeing that he had been condemned,” and the rest. Judas, repenting, gave back the price of Christ’s blood to the priests: so that, although he himself was the author of selling righteous blood, the very profession of the seller might convict the unbelief of the buyers. “They answered: What is that to us? See to it yourself.” The profession is bold and blind. They hear that they have bought righteous blood, and they believe that they will be outside the guilt of judgment: whereas by saying, “See to it yourself,” they place the crime itself in the seller, while, on the contrary, by the testimony of the seller the crime of the buyers is confirmed. So, going off, he hanged himself after Christ’s condemnation. The time of Judas’s death was so arranged that, at the Lord’s passion, when all things below and above were moved and torn up and the governance of all the elements was stunned into forgetfulness of its office, he might neither be visited among the dead nor have opportunity for repentance among the living after the resurrection. As for the silver pieces given back, since it was the price of blood and could not be mixed with the corban, that is, with the money of offerings, after taking counsel the potter’s field is bought and assigned for the burial of strangers. Great in this is the mystery of prophecy, and in the deeds of iniquity there is a meditation full of wonder. It is the work of a potter to form vessels from clay; it lies in his hand to re-form, from the same clay, a vessel either the same or more beautiful. That the world is called a field is contained in the very words of our Lord. So the world is bought at the price of Christ, that is, the whole of it is acquired, and it is assigned for the burial of strangers and the needy. Nothing of this belongs to Israel, and the whole use of the world bought is for strangers: for those, namely, who will be buried in the price of Christ’s blood, by which all things have been bought. For he has received from the Father all things that are in heaven and on earth: and therefore this is the potter’s field, because all things are God’s, in whose hand it lies to re-form us as he wishes, like a potter. In this field, then, having died with Christ and been buried with him, we shall obtain the eternal rest of this our pilgrimage. For assurance of this the prophecy of Jeremiah is added, so that in the work of this deed the authority of the divine voice, so long before, might be shown. When Pilate asked whether he was the king of the Jews, he answered: “You say it.” But how different is the speech from that which had been to the priest! For to him, asking whether he was the Christ, he had said: “You have said it.” This is because the law had proclaimed in all things that Christ would come: the answer to the priest is as of things past, because he himself had always said from the law that Christ would come. But to this man, ignorant of the law, asking whether he was the king of the Jews, it is said: “You say it”: because the salvation of the nations is through faith in present confession, and because the one who was formerly ignorant says this about him, which those deny who formerly were saying it.

“While Pilate was sitting on the judgment seat, his wife sent to him, saying: Have nothing to do with that righteous man.” In her is the figure of the people of the nations: which, now faithful, calls the unbelieving people with whom it lived to faith in Christ. Since she herself has suffered much for Christ, she invites him with whom she lived to the same glory of future hope. Then Pilate washed his hands and testified to the Jewish people that he was innocent of the Lord’s blood: because, the Jews taking on themselves and their sons the crime of the Lord’s blood poured out, the people of the nations, washed, passes over daily to the confession of faith. When Pilate offered, according to the privilege of the feast day on which one of the accused had to be released at the people’s demand, to release Jesus, the people, urged by the priests, chose Barabbas rather. The interpretation of the name Barabbas is “son of the father.” Already, then, the secret of future unbelief is shown, by preferring to Christ the son of the father, namely Antichrist, the man of sin and son of the devil: and, urged by their leaders, they choose one reserved for damnation rather than the author of salvation. Then, the Lord having been beaten, a scarlet cloak, a purple garment, a crown of thorns, and a reed in his right hand are put on him, and, kneeling, they worship him in mockery. Having taken up, that is, all the weaknesses of our body, he is then drenched in the color of scarlet with the blood of all the martyrs, to whom a kingdom with him was owed: and he is clothed in purple with the precious honor of the prophets and patriarchs. He is also crowned with thorns, that is, with the sins of the nations, once piercing: so that from harmful and useless things, which, set around his head, that is, God, are contrived, the glory of sinners might be sought. For there is a sting in thorns, from which the crown of victory is woven for Christ. In the reed, the weakness and emptiness of the same nations, taken in hand, is made firm. Indeed it is struck on his head. To the head, I think, there is no great injury from the blow of a reed: but a typological reason is kept in it, that the weakness of the bodies of the nations, taken in Christ’s hand, may rest even in God the Father, who is his head. And in all these, while Christ is mocked, he is worshiped. Going out, they place the wood of the passion on a certain man of Cyrene. For the Jew was unworthy to carry Christ’s cross: because it was left to the faith of the nations both to take up the cross and to suffer with him. Then the place of the cross is such that, set in the middle of the earth and standing as on the summit of this universe, it was equally open to all nations for grasping the knowledge of God. He also refused to drink the wine mixed with gall that was offered: for the bitterness of sins is not mixed with the incorruption of eternal glory. His garment, divided by lot rather than torn, indicated the incorruption of the body that would remain. And so the salvation and life of all hangs on the tree of life; two robbers are fixed to it, on left and right (and therefore with him, so that it might be understood that the death of men differs from the death of the Only-begotten: for he gave up his spirit willingly when he wished, while their legs were broken), showing that the whole of the human race is called to the mystery of the Lord’s passion. But since, through the difference of believers and unbelievers, the division of all is by right and left, one of the two, placed at the right, is saved by the justification of faith. There is added also that reproach by which Israel convicted itself of unbelief, when it is said: “This is he who was destroying the temple of God and rebuilding it in three days,” and the rest. It would not be difficult to come down from the cross: but the mystery of the Father’s will had to be fulfilled. But, set on the cross, he was doing greater works, by the upheaval of all nature: is this, then, put forward as the greatest of all and as most difficult? What pardon, then, will there be, when after three days the temple of God is seen rebuilt in the resurrection of the body? That both robbers reproach him with the condition of his passion signifies that the cross would be a stumbling block even to all the faithful. The night from the day is a division of times. For so the third number of three days and as many nights is completed: and the hidden mystery of the divine working is felt by the astonishment of all creation. The cry to God is the voice of the body, testifying to the departure of the Word of God withdrawing from it. Accordingly he cries out why he is forsaken, saying: “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?” But he is forsaken: because he was a man who had to be carried even through death. Indeed this too must be carefully considered, that, after drinking the vinegar given in a sponge on a reed, he cried out and gave up his spirit. Wine is both the honor and the power of immortality, which turns sour through the fault either of carelessness or of the vessel. Since this had soured in Adam, he himself received it and drank it from the nations. For it is offered on a reed from a sponge for him to drink, that is, from the bodies of the nations he received the vices of corrupted eternity; and into himself and into the communion of immortality he transferred the vices that were in us. Accordingly, in John, after he had drunk, he said: “It is finished”: because he had drained every vice of human corruption. And since nothing was to be done outwardly, he sent forth his spirit with a cry and a loud voice: grieving that he was not bearing the sins of all. And thereupon the veil of the temple is torn: because from then on the people was divided into parts, and the honor of the veil is taken away together with the guard of the protecting angel. The earth is moved: for it could not be capable of holding this dead man. The rocks were split: for the Word of God and the might of eternal power, penetrating all things then strong and firm, had burst in. And the tombs were opened: for the bars of death had been unlocked. And many bodies of the saints who had fallen asleep rose: for, illuminating the darkness of death and lighting up the gloom of the underworld, he was taking away the spoils of death itself in the resurrection of the saints, who were seen at once. But so that the crime of unbelief might be heaped on Israel, the centurion and the guards, seeing this upheaval of all nature, confess the Son of God. That Joseph asked Pilate to give back the body, that it is wrapped in a linen cloth, laid in a new tomb cut in rock, and a stone rolled to the door of the tomb: although this is the order of events, and it was necessary that he who would rise from the dead should be buried, yet each thing is expressed not without some significance. Joseph bears the figure of the apostles: and therefore, though he was not among the number of the twelve apostles, he is called a disciple of the Lord. He wraps the body in a clean cloth. And indeed in this same linen sheet we find that the kinds of all animals were let down from heaven to Peter. From this it is perhaps not superfluously understood that under the name of this linen the church is buried with Christ: because in it, as in the mingling of the church, a diversity of clean and unclean animals was gathered. So the Lord’s body is brought, as through the teaching of the apostles, into the empty and new rest of hewn stone: that is, Christ is brought into the heart of pagan hardness, hewn out by a kind of work of teaching, rough and new, and before passable by no entry of the fear of God. And since nothing besides him ought to penetrate our hearts, a stone is rolled to the door: so that, since no author of divine knowledge had been brought into us before, none may be brought in afterward without him. Then the fear that the body would be stolen, and the guarding and sealing of the tomb, is a testimony of folly and unbelief: that they wished to seal the tomb of him at whose command they had seen a dead man raised from a tomb. The earthquake in the morning is the power of the resurrection on the Lord’s day: when, the sting of death crushed and its darkness illuminated, as the Lord of the heavenly powers rises, the trembling of the underworld is stirred. The angel of the Lord coming down from heaven, rolling back the stone, and sitting by the tomb is the token of the mercy of God the Father, sending the ministries of the heavenly powers to the Son rising from the underworld. And therefore he is first the herald of the resurrection, so that the resurrection might be announced by a kind of service to the Father’s will. But at once the Lord meets the women, who had been encouraged by the angel, and greets them: so that, about to announce the resurrection to the waiting disciples, they might speak with the mouth of Christ rather than of an angel. That the women first see the Lord, are greeted, fall at his knees, and are ordered to tell the apostles: the order of the principal cause is turned the other way: so that, since death had begun from this sex, to it first the glory, sight, fruit, and announcement of the resurrection might be given. The silence about Christ’s resurrection is bought with silver from the guards who had seen all these things, and the lie of theft: by the honor, that is, and greed of the world, because its honor is in money, the glory of Christ is denied.