Chapter 6

The Passion of our Lord Jesus Christ was prefigured from the beginning in the first Adam, our first parent. Through his disobedience, when he stretched out his hand toward the forbidden tree at the sixth hour of the sixth weekday and tasted the sweetness of the food, the whole human race was weakened unto death. It was prefigured as the medicine by which that sickness would be healed when, after the Fall, Adam hid himself in the midst of the tree of Paradise, as Genesis 3 says. For this signified that through the wood of the cross, on which Jesus, out of obedience to the Father, stretched out his innocent hands at the sixth hour of the sixth weekday, on March 25, and tasted the bitterness of gall, sin itself would be hidden from God—not so that he would be ignorant of it, but so that it would be forgiven and he would not punish it. Thus Christ brought the remedy from the very place from which the enemy had inflicted the wound.

This most sacred Passion, therefore, was prefigured in the patriarchs, foretold by the prophets, and narrated after the event by all the Evangelists. In setting it forth, whenever one of them passes something over, another supplies it.

To show that Christ endured the Passion voluntarily and was not compelled, in accordance with Isaiah 53, “He was offered because he himself willed it,” he foretold his Passion to the disciples many times. Since he knew it beforehand, he could have avoided it and gone to other places. He foretold not only death itself and the kind of death, but also the day. For, as Matthew, the first of the Evangelists, narrates, he said to his disciples: “You know that after two days the Passover will take place, and the Son of Man will be handed over to be crucified.” If this is understood of two complete days, he said it on the third weekday, Tuesday, before the Passion. If it is understood by taking a part for the whole, this could also have been Wednesday.

“The Passover will take place,” that is, the paschal lamb will be eaten. According to the Law, it had to be sacrificed and eaten after evening, as is clear from Exodus 14 [read: Exodus 12], in memory of the benefit received from God on such a night. For when the lamb had been sacrificed in Egypt and the firstborn of all the Egyptians had been killed by the destroyer, the Jews departed unharmed from Pharaoh’s servitude. This was also a figure of the Passion of Christ, the immaculate Lamb, which began on such a night. Through it the Israelites—that is, the true faithful—are freed from the devil’s servitude, their vices are killed, and they are saved, provided that the doorposts of the house are anointed with the Lamb’s blood; that is, provided that faith in the Passion is held in mind and deed.

“The Son of Man,” that is, of the Virgin, “will be handed over to be crucified.” He was handed over by God the Father, who exposed him to death and permitted it because of his exceedingly great charity toward us. Romans 8 says: “He did not spare his own Son, but handed him over for us.” John 3 says: “God so loved the world that he gave his only-begotten Son.”

He was handed over by himself for our redemption. Hence Ephesians says: “He gave himself for us as an offering to God, for an odor of sweetness.”

He was handed over by Judas Iscariot for the satisfaction of avarice. Luke 22 says: “Having received the money, he sought an opportunity to hand him over,” namely to the Jews.

He was handed over by the Jews to Pilate because of the infection of envy. Matthew 25 [read: Matthew 27:18] says: “For he knew that the Jews had handed him over through envy,” namely Pilate knew this.

To explain the Passion itself according to its history, we shall make seven considerations:

1. The Jews’ counsel and determination concerning it.
2. Christ’s final meal with the Apostles.
3. His prayer and capture in the garden.
4. His being led before different judges.
5. The examination and decision of his case.
6. The execution of the sentence of the cross.
7. The separation of his soul from his body.

As to the first consideration, § I

Matthew says: “Then”—namely on the day on which Christ had spoken those words—“the chief priests and the magistrates,” that is, officials, “assembled in the courtyard of the chief priest, who was called Caiaphas.” There counsel was taken concerning his capture, the price of the betrayal was demanded, and an agreement concerning it was confirmed.

They therefore assembled to take counsel and deliberate how they might seize Jesus by deceit and kill him. At another time, when Caiaphas gave the counsel, they had decreed that he should be killed. Now they deliberate carefully about the manner of seizing him, lest he escape. Hence they say: “Not on the feast day,” that is, let us not do this—seize him—then. The Evangelist shows that they did not say this out of reverence for the feast, but lest he be taken from their hands by the people. Hence it continues: “Lest perhaps there be a tumult among the people.”

Foreseeing their counsel, or rather their conspiracy, and detesting it, the patriarch Jacob said: “Simeon and Levi are vessels of iniquity, waging war. Let my soul not come into their counsel, nor my glory be in their assembly.” He assigns the reason when he adds: “Because in their fury they killed a man”; and afterward: “Cursed be their fury, because it is stubborn, and their indignation, because it is hard.” This is in the penultimate chapter of Genesis.

It is certain that the priests came from the tribe of Levi. Many of the scribes are said to have descended from the tribe of Simeon, and the scribes were chief among those who counseled Christ’s death. Their minds were wicked, waging war against Christ, for they deliberated and took action not from reason but from fury and envy, so that the man—that is, Christ, who was wholly virtuous—might be killed. Their fury was stubborn, because when Pilate wished to free him as innocent, they persisted in crying: “Let him be crucified.”

The Evangelists Matthew, Mark, and Luke add here, by recapitulation, the anointing of Christ by Mary Magdalene at the supper and Judas’s murmuring. This does not mean that it happened on the day of the Jews’ council, but on the preceding Sabbath, as John narrates and as was clear above. The account is nevertheless attached here because that event was the occasion Judas accepted, though it did not cause him, to commit the betrayal.

For, as the Gloss says in Cause 13, Question 1, § 1, Judas was accustomed to steal a tenth of the things given to him for safekeeping. He wanted the ointment that had been poured out to be sold. Its price was three hundred denarii, of which a tenth was thirty. Since he could not steal the tenth because it had not been sold, he committed the betrayal for thirty silver denarii, as though wishing to make good the loss he had sustained.

Thus Judas himself, perceiving that the priests had assembled to discuss Christ’s capture, went to those gathered in council when Satan had entered him, as Luke says—not through an affliction of his body, but through a new effect of malice. He said: “What are you willing to give me, and I shall hand him over to you?”

O rash utterance, full of presumption! He promises to hand over to them, as though Christ were under his power, the Lord of all, to whom all things were handed over by the eternal Father. Hence he says: “What are you willing,” and so forth.

O utterance most worthy of every punishment! His own Lord and Master had bestowed so many benefits upon him, had called him to the highest dignity of the apostolate, had sent him with the others to preach and perform miracles, and had appointed him his steward. Now Judas exposes him for sale like a cheap slave and leaves the price to the buyers’ will, saying: “What are you willing,” and so forth.

Is this the teaching the best of masters handed down? He taught you to despise temporal things, to injure no one and to help your neighbor according to your ability; and now, out of avarice, you betray the most innocent one and hand him over to death, saying: “What are you willing,” and so forth.

When the assembled Jews heard this, they rejoiced and gave him thirty silver pieces for the deed. Thus was fulfilled the figure found in Genesis 37 concerning Joseph, the most perfect youth, who at the suggestion of his brother Judah was sold for thirty [read: twenty] silver pieces and handed over into the Ishmaelites’ hands through envy, lest he rule over his brothers. But the contrary of what they intended happened to them, for by this Joseph was exalted, adored, and called the savior of the world. So too, through that handing over into the Gentiles’ hands and through the Passion, God exalted Jesus and gave him the name above every name—Jesus, which is interpreted “Savior”—so that at the name of Jesus every knee should bend.

Having received the money, Judas pledged himself to commit the betrayal and thereafter sought an opportunity to hand him over when he was apart from the crowds. In this deed the most wicked Judas committed not only betrayal and abduction, by selling a free man, but also sacrilege and simony, by selling Christ, the source of every grace.

Hence Gregory Nazianzen says: “Judas sold the Redeemer of all. Soon afterward, suspended from a noose, he did not finally obtain the grace of redemption”; and rightly so, because no one can retain what he has sold. This is in Cause 1, Question 1, canon Qui studet.

Here one should also note what Bede says on Mark: Many today shudder at Judas’s crime—because he sold God, his Lord and Master, for money—as a monstrous and unspeakable crime, yet do not guard themselves against it. For when they give false testimony against someone for gifts, because they deny the truth for money they certainly sell God for money; for he himself said, “I am the truth.” When they defile the fellowship of brotherhood with the infection of any discord, they betray God, because God is charity. This is especially so when the sin is committed not through weakness or ignorance, but, after Judas’s likeness, they seek an opportunity to exchange virtue for crime. This is in Cause 11, Question 3, canon Abiit.

In De consecratione, Distinction 3, canon Ieiunia, it is said that on Wednesday Judas devised—that is, negotiated—the Lord’s betrayal. Hence in ancient times a fast was observed on that day, as is clear in the cited canon. Now, out of reverence for the Passion, many people abstain from meat on that day, not by precept but from devotion.

As to the second consideration, § II: the Last Supper of Christ

“On the first day of unleavened bread,” as Matthew, Mark, and Luke say—that is, Thursday, which is called the first day of unleavened bread because in the evening of that day they ate unleavened and not leavened bread with the lamb, an observance thereafter kept through the following seven days, which were called the days of unleavened bread—the disciples approached Jesus and said: “Where do you wish us to prepare for you to eat the Passover?” That is, the paschal lamb, which all Jews were bound to eat according to the Law. Since Christ and the Apostles did not have a house of their own, they therefore asked about a definite place.

Then Christ, as Luke narrates, sent Peter and John—the first as the more diligent and the second as the one more beloved than the others—saying to them and giving these signs: “Behold, as you enter the city, a man carrying a jar of water will meet you. Follow him into the house which he enters, and say to the master of the house: ‘The Master says to you: Where is the guest chamber,’” that is, a private place, “‘where I may eat the Passover with my disciples,’” that is, the paschal lamb? “And he will show you a large, furnished upper room,” that is, a hall, “and prepare there,” namely the necessities for us.

Christ did not wish to name the man lest, according to Chrysostom, Judas hear it and arrange for him to be captured there before the appointed hour. They therefore went, found everything, and prepared what was needed.

At this holy banquet, note three things Christ did: he washed the disciples’ feet, instituted the sacrament of the Eucharist, and delivered a most sweet discourse.

John alone narrates the first, saying: “When supper had been made,” that is, prepared on Mount Zion, where, when evening had come, Christ was with the Twelve. According to Luke, he said to them: “With desire I have desired,” that is, I have greatly desired, “to eat this Passover,” that is, the paschal lamb, “with you.” For this lamb signifies my Passion, which I have desired to endure for the liberation of the human race. It figures the sacred Communion in which I leave my whole self to you. By the act itself he also intimates the humility necessary for that Communion and for our heavenly glorification.

Hence, according to John, Jesus “rose from supper.” Taking a linen cloth, he poured water into a basin, began to wash the disciples’ feet, and wiped them with the cloth with which he was girded.

When he came to Peter and washed his feet, Peter, astounded at such profound humility, said: “Lord, do you wash my feet?” It is as though he said: It is not fitting that you, the Lord, should wash me, a servant; you, the Master, me, a disciple; you, the most holy, me, a sinner.

Jesus answered him: “What I do you do not know now, but you will know afterward.” Peter did not then understand the mystery signified there. For it was figured in this act that one approaching the Eucharist, which they were about to receive, must have even the feet of his affections cleansed of the dust of vices.

Unable to bear such humility in his Master, Peter answered: “You shall never wash my feet.” Pope Gelasius says: Blessed Peter, out of an affection of divine reverence, answered the Lord, “You shall never wash my feet.” He is not to be thought to have lied—which God forbid—or in the least to have failed to stand by his declaration, for he soon yielded to the divine will; and, bound by the reasons of human salvation, he suffered what he had said he would not do to be done from a good will. This is in Cause 22, Question 2, canon Beatus.

Christ said to him: “If I do not wash you, you shall have no part with me,” namely in the Kingdom. Peter immediately acquiesced, saying: “Lord, not only my feet, but also my hands and head.” For to communicate worthily, the feet of the power of willing must be washed of disordered affections, the hands of the power of execution from depraved actions, and the head of the power of understanding from every error.

While washing Peter’s feet, Jesus therefore said: “He who is washed,” that is, baptized, “needs only to wash his feet,” that is, his affection from unlawful desires. It is as though he said: It is not fitting to be baptized again, but to be cleansed by penance from sins committed afterward.

Augustine says: That the Apostles themselves were baptized could become known to us from the Lord’s saying to the baptized Apostle Peter: “He who is washed needs only to wash his feet.” This is in De consecratione, Distinction 4, canon Si eos.

It continues: “And he is wholly clean. And you are clean, but not all.” He said this because of Judas, who was intent upon betrayal. After Peter he also washed the feet of the others, even Judas. Indeed, some say he began to wash with Judas, so that by greater kindness he might the more draw him back from evil.

When the washing was completed, he resumed his garments, sat down at table, and said: “Do you know what I have done to you? You call me Master and Lord,” and so forth. “If therefore I, your Lord and Master, have washed your feet, you too ought to wash one another’s feet,” that is, render the services of humanity even to enemies. “For I have given you an example.”

Thereafter, when the paschal lamb had been eaten, as Jerome says in De consecratione, Distinction 2, canon Accipite, with the disciples he took bread into his hands, gave thanks, broke it, and said: “Take and eat; this is my body.” Likewise, near the end of the supper, he took the cup after he had supped and said: “Take and drink from this, all of you. For this is the cup,” and so forth.

Through these words Christ converted that bread and wine into the substance of his body and blood. He gave the Apostles and all who are ordained to the priesthood, both good and bad, the power to confect through those words the sacrament of his body and blood.

Hence Eusebius Nisenus [read: Eusebius of Emesa] says in De consecratione, Distinction 2: Because Jesus was about to remove the body he had assumed from the eyes of the faithful and carry it to the stars, it was necessary that on the day of the supper he consecrate for us the sacrament of his body and blood, so that what was offered once as a price might be continually venerated through a mystery. And below: The invisible priest, namely Christ, by his word and secret power converts visible creatures into the substance of his body and blood. Thus Eusebius.

After the consecration he himself also received the sacrament, not because he needed it or acquired from it a new effect of grace, but so that he might furnish us an example of receiving it. Hence Jerome says in De consecratione, Distinction 2, canon Non Moyses: “Not Moses gave you the true bread, but the Lord Jesus: himself both guest and banquet, eating and eaten.”

He also gave it to all the Apostles, including Judas. Hence Augustine says in Cause 1, Question 1: What did Christ do for you—that is, what kind of example did he give—when with such great patience he endured his betrayer that he gave him, as he gave the other Apostles, the Eucharist confected by his own hands and commended by his own mouth?

Jesus added: “But I say to you that I shall not drink of this fruit of the vine,” that is, of this wine, “until I drink it new in my Father’s kingdom,” that is, in a new manner, because after the Resurrection he ate and drank with them. That wine was not converted into the nourishment of his body as it was when he was mortal.

Isaiah foretold this sacred banquet, saying: “The Lord will make upon this mountain,” namely Zion, “a banquet”—a banquet by excellence—“a banquet of fat things and things full of marrow, a banquet of purified vintage, and he shall cast death down forever.”

Of the word “banquet,” Thomas says: What can be more precious than this banquet, in which the true God is set before us to be consumed?

“A banquet of fat things.” Genesis 49 says: “His bread is fat, and he shall furnish delicacies to kings.” Thomas says: What is more healthful than this sacrament, in which sins are forgiven, virtues are increased, and the mind is enriched with an abundance of every charism?

“A banquet of things full of marrow,” that is, of things chosen and most delightful. Wisdom 16 says: “You provided them bread from heaven, having every delight and every taste of sweetness.”

“Of purified vintage,” that is, of the purest wine, namely the most pure blood of Christ. Canticles 5 says: “Drink and be inebriated”—not with material wine, but with the fervor of Christ’s blood, with the wine which, in the Psalm, “gladdens the heart of man.”

Here he casts down death, because “he who eats this bread shall live forever,” John 6. Hence Solomon too says: “I praised that there was no good”—that is, no better good—“for a man under the sun,” that is, in the present life, “except to eat and drink,” namely to receive this sacrament worthily, “and to rejoice,” namely spiritually. This is in Ecclesiastes 8. “What is better than the Lord’s body and blood?” Jerome asks in Cause 1, Question 1, canon Multi.

This banquet was also figured by the banquet Ahasuerus made for his princes and others in the third year, that is, in the state of grace. This is in Esther 1 and 2.

After these things Jesus said, as Luke reports—although Matthew and Mark report this before the institution of the sacrament, which can be understood as said by them through recapitulation—“Amen, I say to you that one of you is about to betray me.” John says that Jesus was then troubled in spirit.

Augustine says at this place: Let the arguments of the Stoics perish, who deny that disturbances of the emotions occur in a wise person. They surely esteem truth as vanity just as they account insensibility to be soundness. Let the Christian’s spirit be troubled, but let it not fail.

Deeply saddened, they began individually to say: “Is it I, Lord?” It is as though they said: Although our conscience does not reproach us with the thought of so great a crime, nevertheless, you who know the secrets of hearts, reveal it so that so great a wickedness may be prevented.

Judas, lest by remaining silent he render himself suspect, also said: “Is it I, Rabbi?” Christ answered him: “You have said it.” This is not to be understood as though Christ said, “You speak the truth, for you are the one”; for in that way he would have disclosed Judas to the others. Instead, “You have said it” means: You say this; I do not say that you are the one.

He adds: “He who dips his hand into the dish with me will betray me. But woe”—namely the woe of eternal damnation—“to that man through whom I shall be betrayed. It would have been better for that man if he had not been born.” For if he had died in his mother’s womb, he would have descended to limbo; but, having been born and not repenting of this crime, he will descend to hell. Or again, although existence is better than nonexistence, nevertheless nonexistence appears better than an evil existence, because being deprived of evil has the character of good. It would therefore have been better for him if he had not been born, even in the womb, that is, if he had not existed.

Yet the betrayer was not disclosed by these words, because they were all dipping at once into the single dish in which there was a sauce of wild lettuces to serve as a condiment according to the commandment of the Law. This shows how greatly secret sins ought not to be disclosed to others.

Hence Augustine says in Cause 2, Question 1: “One of you is about to betray me.” He rightly said “of you,” not “of us.” For he belongs to you, from whom he has not been excluded by judicial authority after confession or conviction; but he is separated and divided from me, who need no arguments and know all things with complete certainty. It is as if Christ said: Although I hold him condemned by the sentence of a hidden judgment, nevertheless continue to bear with him through tolerance. Thus Augustine.

Peter, desiring out of zeal for his Master to know the betrayer—because, as Chrysostom says, he would have killed him had he known him—did not dare ask by himself, but sent his companion, John the Evangelist, to ask Christ about the betrayer.

When John asked who it was, Christ answered quietly so that the others would not hear: “It is the one to whom I shall give a dipped morsel.” Peter Damian says: O incomparable man! Christ brings forth a word in the midst, and the whole senate of the Apostles is silent. John alone approaches as counselor.

John is said at that time to have reclined in Jesus’s bosom or upon his breast. According to the letter, because he stood beside him at the table or opposite him, John inclined his head upon Jesus’s breast so that he might speak more privately. Mystically, according to Bede, this signified that he was to drink from the fountain of the Lord’s breast, where the treasures of God’s wisdom are hidden, so that he might utter that divine mystery: “In the beginning was the Word.”

When Jesus had dipped the morsel, he handed it to Judas; and after the morsel Satan entered into him—not for the first time, since he had already entered him, but through a new effect of malice, so that Judas might put into execution the betrayal he had conceived. That morsel was not the sacrament, for Christ had already given it, but it was a figure of the person who approaches the sacrament unworthily.

Augustine says in De consecratione, Distinction 2: Just as Christ, when he handed the morsel to Judas, gave him a place for the devil not by giving him an evil thing but because Judas received it evilly, so whoever receives Christ’s body unworthily does not cause what he receives to be evil because he himself is evil, nor does he receive nothing because he does not receive it unto salvation.

Jesus said to Judas: “What you do, do more quickly.” It is as though he said: Since neither threats nor entreaties call you back from your evil purpose, do more quickly what you do—that is, what you are arranging to do by betrayal. He was not urging Judas to evil, but displaying his own desire for human redemption.

Nevertheless, John says, none of the disciples understood why he said this. Because Judas kept the purse, they thought he was telling him to buy the necessities for the feast or to give something to the needy.

Augustine says in Cause 12, Question 1: The Lord had a purse, preserving the offerings made by the faithful and distributing them for his followers’ necessities and to others in need.

After the morsel, Judas went out to execute the betrayal, night having already fallen.

This progress of Judas—entering and leaving to negotiate the betrayal and execute it—is described in the Psalm: “If he entered,” namely the house, in order to see its suitability for the deed, “he spoke vain things,” that is, evil and false things, murmuring about the pouring out of the ointment. “His heart gathered iniquity to itself,” by proposing to himself many iniquities to commit, such as sacrilege and the others. “He went outside” to seize an opportunity, “and spoke to the same purpose,” that is, to complete the evil. “And he who ate my bread magnified supplantation against me,” that is, committed a great betrayal against me.

Then Jesus said: “Now the Son of Man is glorified, and God is glorified in him.” That is, now, in my very Passion, which Judas has gone out to negotiate, I, insofar as I am man, will appear glorified by vanquishing the powers of the air and pacifying the things in heaven and on earth. From this, God was glorified in him, the man Christ, because this will be done by the power of God himself.

And if God is glorified in him, as was said, since he is one person, God and man, and is of one essence with the Father, “God has glorified him in himself,” that is, through himself and not through another. “And he will immediately glorify him,” namely in the Passion itself through the miracles then performed, and afterward in the Resurrection by manifesting the glory of his divinity.

Or, according to Augustine, “Now he is glorified,” and so forth, because, when the unclean Judas had been excluded, only the clean remained with the one who cleansed them. It is as though Christ said: This is a figure of the future universal glorification in which no evil person will be there and no good person will depart. “And God is glorified in him,” that is, God’s glory will be perfectly manifested, and this by his own power.

Thereafter Christ delivered a long discourse which John alone describes in four chapters, from chapter 14 through chapter 17 inclusive. In it he exhorted them and commanded fraternal charity, set forth the majesty of divine things and especially of the Holy Spirit, and finally ended in the humility of prayer, praying for himself, for the Apostles, and for all the elect.

As to the third consideration, § III: his capture

Matthew says that after supper and the discourse, when a hymn had been said in thanksgiving—teaching us by this to give thanks to God after eating—they went out to the Mount of Olives and came to the village called Gethsemane. They first crossed a certain brook called Kidron, which was at the foot of the Mount of Olives. John begins his narrative of the Passion with this crossing of the brook Kidron.

In that village there was a garden in which Jesus was sometimes accustomed to assemble with the disciples to pray and teach more secret things.

Matthew and Mark report that the Lord foretold Peter’s denial after he had left the house for the Mount of Olives, whereas Luke and John narrate that this occurred in the house where they had eaten. Augustine reconciles this in two ways. In one way, Matthew and Mark said those things by recapitulation, recounting what they had omitted among the things done in the house; or Luke and John did so by anticipation, narrating first what was done afterward—a mode frequently employed by the Evangelists. In another way, it may be said that Christ foretold Peter’s future denial and Peter’s presumptuous answer several times: in the house, as Luke and John relate, and afterward again in the garden on the Mount of Olives, as Matthew and Mark relate.

Concerning this third consideration, note Peter’s denial, which Christ foretold; the prayer which he poured forth three times; and the multitude which came to seize him.

Jeremiah prophesied of his capture, saying in Lamentations 4: “Christ the Lord was captured for our sins, to whom we said: In your shadow,” that is, in your obscure Passion, “we shall live.”

Going out, therefore, with the eleven disciples, he said to them: “All of you will suffer scandal because of me on this night.” He calls “scandal” the loss of faith in his divinity into which they fell upon seeing his capture, which was so ignominious. Hence they also fled.

He confirms his statement through Zechariah’s prophecy, which foretold this in Zechariah 13: “Strike the shepherd, and the sheep will be scattered.” The prophet speaks to God the Father: “Strike,” that is, permit the shepherd, namely Christ, to be struck with the Passion by the Jews; and from this will follow the scattering—that is, the flight—of his sheep, that is, his disciples.

But the Evangelist, seeing the prophecy fulfilled, speaks in the person of the Father to the prophet, saying: “I shall strike,” that is, I shall permit him to be struck, “and thus the sheep of the flock,” that is, the Apostles, “will be scattered.” But, comforting them, he adds: “After I have risen,” namely on the third day, as he had foretold elsewhere, introducing the figure of Jonah, who remained three days in the whale’s belly, “I shall go before you into Galilee,” namely appearing to you.

Peter answered him: “Even if all are scandalized, I shall not be.” But Jesus said to Simon Peter, who seemed to trust more in his own strength: “Simon, behold, Satan has demanded you, that he might sift you like wheat”; that is, he sought and received permission from God, for otherwise he could not have had the temptation of shaking you and separating you from the wheat of God’s elect. For through the sieve’s great shaking, even some wheat sometimes falls to the ground with the darnel.

“But I,” Christ adds, “have prayed for you,” insofar as I am man, “that your faith may not fail,” namely by a final failure. For he did not say: I have prayed that you may not deny me.

Christ prayed not only for Peter, but for the whole Church entrusted to Peter; and it is impossible that he was not heard. The Church’s faith has never failed. For although some fall away from the faith, some always remain in it. Hence at the time of the Passion, even if it failed in the Apostles, it nevertheless remained in the Virgin Mother.

“And you, when you have been converted,” he adds, “strengthen your brothers”—converted, namely, to penance after your fall.

Peter said: “Lord, I am ready to go with you to prison and to death.” Jesus answered: “I say to you, Peter, that before the cock has crowed twice on this night,” as Mark says, “you will deny me three times.” Peter answered: “Even if I must die with you, I shall not deny you.” Peter did not tell a lie, because this was what he then intended; but he spoke far too presumptuously, ignorant of his own weakness, which Jesus knew and was intimating to him. All the others spoke similarly.

Ambrose says: These things were said so that we may know that no one ought to boast of himself. For if Peter fell, who said, “Even if the others are scandalized, I shall not be,” who else may presume concerning himself? This is in Cause 6, Question 1, canon Imitare.

Luke reports that a dispute arose among them over which of them seemed to be the greater. The Greek says that the cause of this dispute could have been that they had heard that the Lord was to depart from them, and therefore they asked who after this would act in his place. But the Lord immediately led them back to humility, showing that those who preside over souls ought not be like the rulers of the world who seek to dominate their subjects; rather, whoever was greater should minister to all. In this he gave the example of himself, who, though Lord, had served them by washing their feet.

Then, as Luke alone writes, Jesus said to the disciples: “When I sent you without purse, bag, and shoes, did anything lack for you?” They answered: “Nothing.” He said: “But now let the one who has a purse,” namely for keeping money, “take it, and likewise a bag,” namely for provisions; “and let the one who does not have one sell his tunic and buy a sword.”

It is as though he said: Until now, without keeping the things just named in reserve, you possessed necessary things in abundance while I was present. From now on, however, because you will suffer persecution, these things will not be given to you. I therefore permit you to provide these things for yourselves according to necessity—not only provisions for living, but also weapons for defense when needed.

The disciples said: “Lord, behold, here are two swords”: one which would cut off the servant’s ear so that the Lord’s power might appear in healing it, and the other which would not be unsheathed, so that it might be shown that not every defense that could have been made for the Lord was made. Jesus therefore said: “It is enough.” The Church possesses both swords.

Thereafter Jesus entered that garden in the village of Gethsemane, taking Peter, James, and John with him. He began to grow weary, to fear, and to be sorrowful, thereby showing that he possessed true humanity, which is afflicted by considering the pains it sees prepared for it.

Hence he also said to them: “My soul is sorrowful unto death,” that is, I feel a mortal sadness and affliction. “Remain here and watch with me.”

Because in straits nothing is more fitting than to have recourse to God through prayer, he therefore withdrew from them about a stone’s throw, as Luke says, fell upon his face, and prayed, saying: “Father, if it is possible, let this cup pass from me.” He calls the Passion a cup.

This is explained in three ways. In the first way, he asks that the power of his Passion pass from him to all the martyrs and to those who suffer affliction for Christ, so that by his merit they might be given the constancy to suffer which he himself possessed. This is Augustine’s explanation.

In the second way, because he knew that the Jewish people, for whose salvation he had labored so greatly, would be blinded and condemned through the Passion itself because of their perfidy, he has compassion upon them. He asks not that he should not drink the cup of the Passion, but that it should pass from that people and be brought about through others. This is Ambrose’s explanation.

In the third way, according to Dionysius of Alexandria, he does not ask that the cup should not come to him; for unless it came, it could not pass away. Rather, when he perceived the Passion already present, he began to be affected and saddened, and as though it were already drawing near, he said: “Let this cup pass.” He therefore asks that the temptation gently beginning to assail him be driven away. This is not to enter into temptation, for which he counsels us to pray.

“Nevertheless, not my will, but yours be done.” Athanasius says: Here he shows two wills: one human, which belongs to the flesh, that is, the sensitive part; and the other divine. For his humanity, because of the flesh’s weakness, refuses the Passion, but his divine affection eagerly underwent it. Thus Athanasius.

What he says, therefore—“Not my will”—is understood according to the natural and sensitive impulse. What he adds—“But yours be done,” namely your will—is the one will of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, to which his human will was always wholly subject according to the rational impulse.

As the Master says in the Third Book of the Sentences, Christ knew that the prayer would not be heard, nor did he wish that prayer to be heard; nevertheless, he did not pray it in vain. Hence the Psalm says in his person: “My God, I shall cry by day and by night, and you will not hear; nevertheless it shall not be imputed to me as foolishness.” Rather, he prayed to give us the form showing that in straits we may lawfully ask to be delivered from them if that is according to God’s will. If we are not heard, we ought to judge that God does not will it, and therefore we must bear it patiently.

When the prayer had been made, he returned to the place where he had left the disciples—those three, Peter, James, and John. Approaching them and finding them asleep, he said to Simon, who had promised more fully to die for him: “Simon, are you sleeping? Could you not watch one hour with me?”

To all the others as well he said: “Watch and pray, lest you enter into temptation,” that is, lest you succumb to temptation. “The spirit indeed is willing,” that is, reason and fervor are willing to suffer and to act well, “but the flesh is weak,” that is, sensuality is too feeble to execute what the spirit dictates and urges.

Leaving them, he again went to the place where he had prayed before and poured forth the same prayer. Returning to the disciples a second time, he found them asleep, for their eyes were weighed down by sorrow and sleep. He left them and returned to the place a third time, expressing the same words in prayer.

As Luke alone says, “An angel from heaven appeared to him, strengthening him,” that is, speaking words of consolation to that sensitive part which was terrified by the representation made to it of the immense punishment he was now to endure: O Lord, our Lord, this Passion will pass quickly, and from it the greatest fruit will follow—the redemption of the human race, which you have loved so greatly, and the restoration of our ruin. Therefore let your heart be strengthened.

“And being in agony,” that is, anxiety, “he prayed more earnestly.” He felt such great affliction in that agony from considering the imminent Passion that “his sweat became like drops of blood running down to the ground.”

When he afterward came to the disciples and found them asleep, he said: “Sleep now and take your rest. It is enough.” To show, after laying aside every fear, that he suffered voluntarily, he said: “Rise; let us go toward our adversaries.” Judas had not slept in pursuing the betrayal. “Behold, the one who will betray me will draw near.”

While he was still speaking, behold, a crowd came, and Judas, one of the Twelve, went before them. Judas knew the place, John says, because Jesus frequently assembled there with the disciples, especially on feast days, teaching them something sublime. He preferred them to be removed from the people’s tumult when he taught them such things.

Therefore, as Theophilus says, Judas imagined that, since the solemnity had already begun, Jesus would be there with the disciples to teach them. For Jesus often remained outside the city at night, and Judas therefore did not go to the house where he had left him.

He did not come alone. As John says, he received a cohort—that is, soldiers from the governor—and attendants from the chief priests and Pharisees, with lanterns and torches, lest Jesus be able to flee secretly, and with weapons for resistance and attack in case the crowds devoted to him should wish to free him from their hands. Therefore they brought Gentile soldiers, induced by money, so that they might be more greatly feared.

Jesus therefore went forward to meet them and said, as John alone testifies: “Whom do you seek?” He did not say this as though he did not know, but wishing to show that even though he was present, they could neither see him nor distinguish him from the others.

When they answered, “Jesus of Nazareth,” Jesus said: “I am he.” Chrysostom says that, although he stood in their midst, he blinded their eyes. When Jesus said, “I am he,” at this utterance they all fell backward to the ground together with Judas. According to Chrysostom, Jesus did this to show that they could not only not seize him, but could not even see him unless he himself permitted it.

Augustine says: What will he do when he comes to judge, seeing that he did this when he was to be judged? Even now Christ says everywhere through the Gospel, “I am he”; and Antichrist is awaited by the Jews, so that they may go backward and fall to the ground, since they abandon heavenly things and desire earthly ones.

He asked them again: “Whom do you seek?” Chrysostom says: Lest someone say that Christ himself induced the Jews to kill him by handing himself over into their hands, he manifestly showed them all the things which were sufficient to call them back. But because they persisted in malice and had no excuse, he then handed himself over into their hands.

Hence, when they answered a second time, “Jesus of Nazareth,” he said: “I told you that I am he. Therefore, if you seek me, let these go,” namely my disciples. It is as though he said: I hand myself over to you; release these men. Chrysostom says that to the final hour he thereby displayed the constancy of his love toward his own.

Then, as Luke says, Judas approached to kiss him. For, according to Mark, the betrayer had given them a sign, saying: “Whomever I shall kiss, he is the one; seize him and lead him away carefully.”

The Master says in the Scholastic History that James the Less was very like Christ in appearance, to such a degree that one who had not enjoyed familiar association with them would not have known how to distinguish one from the other. Judas, however, who had long associated with them, knew how to distinguish them. Therefore, lest the others, after being given signs concerning Jesus’s appearance, seize James in his place, he gave the sign of a kiss.

He added: “Lead him away carefully,” lest Jesus escape from their hands, although this most wicked man had experienced that, when Jesus willed it, no one could touch him even when he stood in their midst.

Approaching, therefore, Judas kissed him, saying: “Hail, Rabbi.” Jesus said to him: “Friend, for what have you come?” It is as though he said: Although I have regarded you as my dearest friend, to what a great offense have you come? “Judas, do you betray the Son of Man with a kiss?” as Luke reports. A kiss is the sign of love and peace, and you commit betrayal with this sign.

Chrysostom says: We must not cease from admonishing our brothers even though nothing comes about because of our words. If you do not persuade today, perhaps you will persuade tomorrow. A fisherman who draws empty nets all day catches a fish in the evening. Hence, although the Lord knew that Judas would not be converted, he did not cease to do what pertained to him. He sets down Judas’s own name first, saying “Judas,” which belonged more to one who grieved and called him back than to one provoked to anger.

When the disciples saw what was about to happen, namely Jesus’s capture, they said, according to Luke: “Lord, shall we strike with the sword,” namely in order to defend you? Peter, more fervent than the others, did not wait for the answer. Drawing his sword from its sheath and striking the high priest’s servant, whose name was Malchus, as John says, he cut off his right ear.

Ambrose says: When the Lord’s Passion is read, if we refer the weakness of bodily suffering to his divinity, the ear is cut off—and it is cut off by Peter, who did not suffer Christ to be regarded as a prophet, but taught by faithful confession that he should be marked as God’s Son. This is in Cause 24, Question 1, canon Si Petrus.

That servant, being more audacious than the others, wished to stretch out his hands to seize Jesus. For this reason Peter, intending to strike his head, cut off his ear when he ducked away from the blow.

All the Evangelists narrate this cutting off, but John and Matthew add the rebuke Jesus gave Peter, saying: “Return your sword to its sheath.” For the prelates of the Church may not use the material sword, as was permitted in the Old Testament, as is clear in Phinehas and others, but the spiritual sword.

“Do you not wish me to drink the cup my Father has given me?” That is: Do you not wish me to endure the Passion? “For everyone who takes the sword,” namely by his own authority and without its being given to him by God or by law, “will perish by the sword”—by the temporal sword if he is justly judged, or at least by the sword of the divine sentence in the other life if he does not repent.

Augustine says in Cause 23, Question 4: He takes the sword who, without any superior and legitimate authority either commanding or granting it, is armed to shed another person’s blood.

“Do you think that I cannot ask my Father, and he will furnish me”—that is, for my defense—“more than twelve legions of angels?” A legion is a number containing six thousand six hundred sixty-six. And if one angel alone killed one hundred eighty-three thousand [read: one hundred eighty-five thousand] men from Sennacherib’s army in one night, what would so many thousands of angels do?

Now, therefore, is not the time of vengeance but of humiliation. For how will the Scriptures which speak so many things concerning the Passion be fulfilled if I do not permit them to inflict it, since God has foreordained and foretold that it must so happen?

Luke alone records the healing of the servant. Jesus said: “Suffer thus far,” namely, permit him to come to me. When he had touched his ear, he healed him. The fountain of piety could not restrain himself from bestowing benefits even upon his enemies.

Jesus said to the chief priests, magistrate of the Temple, and elders: “You have come out with swords and clubs to seize me as though against a robber, although I was with you daily and you did not seize me.” It is as though he said: You have seen by experience that you could not apprehend me if I did not will it. It was therefore unnecessary for you to come to capture me as one goes against a robber, lest he be able to escape. “But this is your hour,” that is, permitted by me for you to seize me, “and the power of darkness” granted to those held in the darkness of sins.

Then they laid hands upon Jesus and bound him so that they might lead him away captive. When this was done, all the disciples fled, leaving him.

As to the fourth consideration, § IV: his being led before different judges

It should be known that he was presented first before Annas; second before Caiaphas, where Peter denied him and false testimony was given against him; and third he was handed over to Pilate.

Thus, as John says, the chief priests, the magistrate of the Temple, and the scribes, who had come not in person, as Augustine says, but through their attendants, finally bound Jesus as a robber. They led him away captive, it is credible, with many insults, mockeries, shouts, and blows, holding him as their mortal enemy. The way was fairly long.

A certain young man followed them, as Mark alone reports, clothed with a linen cloth over his naked body. The attendants, thinking he was a disciple of Jesus, attempted to seize him, but, leaving the cloth with them, he fled naked from them. Some say that this young man was John, others James the Less; but the more common and truer opinion is that he was neither of them, but a certain man whose dwelling was on the road by which Jesus was being led. Since he had already gone to sleep, when he heard the noise of those passing he arose. So that he could perceive the cause of the shouts more quickly, he took a linen garment over his flesh and left the house. Seeing Jesus led away captive, he followed them, moved by devotion or curiosity.

Entering the city, the attendants led Jesus to the chief priest Annas, father-in-law of Caiaphas, who, as chief priest that year, had given counsel concerning Jesus’s death. There were several chief priests who exercised the office of high priest for a time, either by lot or for a price, as Caiaphas did according to Josephus.

They therefore first led him to Annas, which John alone reports. Either they did this because Annas’s dwelling was on the way by which they went to Caiaphas’s house, so as to please them both—for they were related not only in the flesh but also in crime—or so that Caiaphas, if accused of having proceeded against Jesus, might be better excused by the counsel of the elder man as well.

Peter followed at a distance, and so did another disciple who is believed to have been John.

Peter followed at a distance because he feared that he might be thought one of Jesus’s disciples. According to Ambrose, he followed at a distance because, led by fear of the Passion, he was already withdrawing from Christ in his mind. According to Bede, he followed at a distance because, although the Church signified in Peter follows Christ in his sufferings, it nevertheless does so from afar: Christ’s Church suffers for its own sins, but Christ suffers for the Church, and the two sufferings differ as greatly as an injury to the Creator differs from an injury to the creature.

The attendants entered the courtyard of the chief priest Annas and stationed Jesus, bound, before Annas. John entered with that crowd because he was known to the chief priest, perhaps because before his discipleship, while he was a fisherman, he reserved selected fish for him and carried them to him. Peter did not dare to enter, but his companion John approached the maidservant who kept the door and asked her to permit him to enter.

When she did so, she looked at Peter and said: “Are you not also one of this man’s disciples?”

According to the Doctor, note that the first cause of the Lord’s Passion was the fault of both our parents, Adam and Eve. To intimate that both sexes were to be liberated through that Passion, divine dispensation therefore provided that not only the male but also the female sex should take part in it. What the maidservant could not do against the person of Christ because she was of a lower condition, she contrived to do against his disciple by instigating him to denial; or rather, when he was discovered to be a disciple, she intended that he should be seized and afflicted.

Peter immediately denied it, saying: “Woman, I do not know him.” Chrysostom says: What are you doing, Peter? Your voice has suddenly changed. No scourges, no harsh torments have been inflicted upon you. No one who can terrify you by the authority of the court is questioning you. It is a woman who questions you, and a lowly maidservant, for she is the doorkeeper.

Ambrose says: Peter denied because he made his promise incautiously.

Augustine says in Cause 12, Question 3: Not only does the person who says that Christ is not Christ deny Christ, but so too does one who, although he is a Christian, denies that he is a Christian. For the Lord did not say to Peter, “You will deny that you are my disciple.” He therefore denied Christ himself when he denied that he was Christ’s disciple. But what else did he do in this way except deny that he was a Christian? Did Peter not deny Christ, as some try to excuse him with perverse favor, because, when questioned by the maidservant, he answered that he did not know the man? Thus Augustine.

The Gloss also says there that although someone believes in Christ in his heart, if he denies him with his mouth, he is not excused from mortal sin. Thomas says the same in the Summa.

Annas the chief priest began to question Jesus about his teaching and his disciples, as John alone writes. He did this not from a desire to understand the truth, but for an occasion to calumniate him, as though his teaching were contrary to the Law or as though he had assembled disciples because he sought sedition.

Christ answered him most gently, saying: “I have spoken openly to the world. I have always taught in the Temple and in the synagogue, where all the Jews assemble, and in secret I have spoken nothing”—without, that is, at least some disciples being present. “Why do you question me? Question those who heard me. Behold, all these know what I have said.” He also spoke nothing in secret as one trembling or inciting sedition, as some supposed. “Question those who heard me,” and so forth.

It is as though, according to Chrysostom, he said: Why do you question me about my followers? Question my enemies who plot against me. These are the words of one confident in the truth of the things that were said. For this is an incontrovertible demonstration of truth: when someone brings his enemies forward as witnesses.

Then one of the attendants standing by struck Jesus with the palm of his hand, as John alone reports. Chrysostom says that this was Malchus, whose ear Jesus had restored after Peter cut it off. The attendant said: “Do you answer the chief priest thus?”

Jesus, like the gentle lamb led to the sacrifice, answered most gently: “If I have spoken evil”—either in answering the chief priest or in teaching in the Temple—“give testimony concerning the evil.”

Augustine says: What is truer, gentler, and more just than this answer? Could not the one who received the blow have willed the person who struck him either to be consumed by fire from heaven, swallowed when the earth opened, rolled about by a demon, or punished with some other, even graver penalty? Which of these things could he who made the world not have commanded by his power? Yet he did none of them.

Cyprian says in Distinction 93: The Lord Jesus, our King, Judge, and Lord, subjected to the Passion, spoke nothing insulting against the person of the chief priest when he received a blow. Rather, he defended his innocence, saying: “If I have spoken evil, give testimony concerning the evil.” All these things were done humbly and patiently so that he might furnish us an example of humility and patience.

But note that the Lord did not present his other cheek to be struck. Rather, piously rebuking the injury inflicted, he said: “But if I have spoken well, why do you strike me?”

Here, according to Augustine, note that the Lord did not present the other cheek to the person striking him, but rather prohibited him from doing it and from increasing the injury. Nevertheless, he had come prepared not only to be struck in the face, but also to be killed by crucifixion for those on whose behalf he suffered this.

From this he showed that the precepts he had given concerning that patience—“If someone strikes you on the right cheek, present to him the other also,” and so forth—are to be retained in the heart’s preparation more than executed in the deed. The soul’s patience with benevolence should be preserved in secret, while openly that should be done which appears to benefit them. This is in Cause 23, Question 1, canon Paratus.

Finally Annas sent him, bound, to his son-in-law Caiaphas. There, because of the cold, a fire had been lit in the middle of the courtyard. Peter entered with the others so that he might see his Master’s end without being recognized as a disciple of Jesus, and warmed himself with the others at the fire. For because the fire of charity in him was already extinguished, Peter warmed himself at the fire lit in the midst of the synagogue of vices.

Another maidservant looked at him and said to those standing by: “This man also is one of his disciples.” Her words moved the hearers, one of whom said: “Truly you too are one of them.” Peter denied him a second time, saying: “O man, I am not.” Although Peter intended to say that he was not a disciple of Jesus, he nevertheless spoke the truth in another sense, namely that he did not possess spiritual existence.

It should be observed that John places Peter’s first denial in Annas’s house, at which time the cock first crowed, and the second and third in Caiaphas’s house, immediately after which the cock crowed a second time. But the other Evangelists describe all three denials as occurring in Caiaphas’s house.

It can be said that they narrated it in this way because those three Evangelists did not care to mention Jesus’s presentation before Annas, for it was an extraordinary proceeding, since Annas was not the high priest who had authority to examine the case. Rather, to please the two men, who were related, they regarded the proceedings as one judgment; or perhaps both were high priests together for that year, although contrary to the Law. Hence each had authority to examine the case, and they were regarded as one tribunal. Therefore the Evangelists report that the whole denial occurred in Caiaphas’s house, where the matter was concluded.

“After a little while”—how long this little while was Luke expressed, saying: “After an interval of about one hour”—certain people said: “Truly you are one of them, for you are also a Galilean; your speech makes you manifest.” The Galileans did not have a language different from the Jews, for the one Hebrew language was common to them. Rather, their mode of pronunciation or accent differed, just as between the Sienese and Florentines.

When Peter wished to excuse himself, a relative of Malchus, whose ear Christ had healed, said: “Did I not see you in the garden with him when we seized him?” Then Peter, so that he might be believed more readily, began to swear, anathematize, and protest that he had not known him. Immediately the cock crowed a second time.

There are several mysteries here. First, this denial by Peter signifies the mortal offense of anyone in the Church. For, as Jerome says, whenever we are conquered by vices and sins, we deny God. This is in Cause 11, Question 3, canon Existimant.

The threefold denial signifies a threefold offense of heart, mouth, and deed. This denial of offense occurred at the instigation of the maidservant and of vices, that is, at the suggestion or incitement of sensuality and of demons, either by themselves or through the persuasion of evil men.

At the cock’s crow Peter recognized his excess—not at the first crow, but at the second, because the sinner is pierced and repents when the preaching or admonition of the good reaches not only the ears but the mind.

Second, one should know, according to Gregory in a homily, that almighty God permitted the one whom he had arranged to preside over the whole Church to fear a maidservant’s voice and deny himself, surely by a great dispensation of piety, so that, as the future shepherd of the Church, he might learn from his own fault how he ought to have mercy on others. This is in Distinction 50, canon Considerandum.

Luke says that the Lord turned and looked upon Peter. It is as though he said: Recognize your sin. Here also his immense compassion is shown. Placed amid mockeries and torturers, as though forgetful of his own punishments, he looks upon Peter in sorrow for Peter’s fall, so that he may weep.

Augustine nevertheless says that this look and turning should be understood more of the conversion and spiritual regard of divine mercy than of a bodily look. Of such a regard it is said by the prophet: “Turn, O Lord, and deliver my soul,” and also: “Look upon me,” and so forth.

“And Peter went outside and wept bitterly.” While conversing with the good, with the disciples, he confessed Christ to be the Son of God. Finding himself among the evil Jews, he denied him. Separated from the wicked, he wept over the denial.

During that night, the most wicked and cruel attendants who held Jesus bound afflicted him in many ways, according to the saying, “My chastisement is in the mornings.” For, as Luke says, they mocked him while striking him; they veiled him and struck his face, saying: “Prophesy to us, Christ: Who is it who struck you?”

O ineffable humility and patience of Jesus Christ! O indescribable cruelty of the Jewish people! They were not ashamed to disfigure with spittle that face full of every grace, upon which the angels desire to gaze. They afflicted with blows that head, the treasury of the treasures of God’s wisdom and knowledge. They covered with veils the Lord’s eyes, brighter than the sun and full of compassion. His ears, which hear the instruments of the saints and the thrones of angels, were filled with the insults and blasphemies of the wicked. Hence Luke himself says: “And they spoke many other things against him, blaspheming.”

When morning came, all the chief priests, elders of the people, and scribes assembled promptly in council, seeking false testimony against Jesus so that they might hand him over to death, but they did not find it.

Finally two false witnesses came, as Matthew and Mark report, who said: “We heard this man say: ‘I am able to destroy this Temple made by hand and in three days to rebuild another not made by hand.’” Their testimonies did not agree.

And rightly so, because he had never said this. Rather, he had said: “Destroy this Temple,” that is, you will destroy this Temple, “and in three days I shall raise it up,” speaking of the temple of his body, not of Solomon’s Temple.

The chief priest, namely Caiaphas, rose and said: “Do you answer nothing to the things these men testify against you?” But Jesus remained silent, knowing that he questioned him not for the sake of discovering the truth but for the sake of calumniating him.

Certain others among the more prominent men said: “If you are Christ, tell us.” Christ answered, as Luke reports: “If I tell you, you will not believe me. If I question you, you will not answer me or release me. But from this time the Son of Man will be seated at the right hand of God’s power.” It is as though he said: Because I am judged unjustly, through this I will be given the power to judge the world.

Because he had not openly said that he was the Son of God, the chief priest rose, indicating the madness of his mind by the movement of his body, and said, as Matthew and Mark report: “I adjure you by the living God to tell us whether you are Christ, the Son of the blessed God.” Jesus was not bound to answer him, because he was not his superior. Hence Caiaphas also sinned gravely by adjuring him in this manner. Nevertheless, out of reverence for the divine name invoked, Jesus answered: “You have said it, because I am the Son of God.”

Then the chief priest tore his garments, saying: “He has blasphemed. What further need have we of witnesses? Behold, you have all heard the blasphemy. What does it seem to you?” They all answered: “He is guilty of death.”

Although those men were exceedingly wicked and were falsely moved when they said that Jesus blasphemed by calling himself the Son of God—in which he spoke the supreme truth—they nevertheless so abhorred blasphemies against God that they could not bear to hear them patiently, but judged such a person guilty of death and tore their garments as a sign of detestation. In this was also figured the coming destruction of the Jewish priesthood, as Gratian says in Cause 2, Question 7.

Then they led Jesus, spat upon, beaten, and bound, to Pilate.

When Judas the betrayer saw that Jesus was to be adjudged to death, he was moved to penance, as Matthew reports, and returned the thirty silver pieces to the chief priests and elders, saying: “I have sinned by betraying innocent blood.” But they answered: “What is that to us? See to it yourself.” It is as though they said: If you have done evil, undergo the penalty yourself.

Augustine says: Judas, who repented, went to the Pharisees, abandoning the Apostles, and found no help, but only an increase of despair. For they said: “What is that to us? See to it yourself. If you have sinned, let it be your concern. We shall not aid you, nor receive your sins in charity, nor teach you how to lay down the burden.” What have we to do with mercy, we who do not even follow the works of justice?

He should have gone to his brothers. He should have gone to those who prayed for Peter’s mother-in-law when she was feverish, and who presented the importunate Canaanite woman to mercy. He should have asked Peter, who was pouring out tears on his own behalf. He should not have fled Mary and Martha, who obtained life for Lazarus. He went to those who were divided, namely the Pharisees, and, himself divided, he perished. This is in De penitentia, Distinction 6, canon 1.

Casting the thirty silver pieces into the Temple, he departed and hanged himself with a noose. Acts 1 says: “Being hanged, he burst asunder in the middle, and all his bowels poured out; and this matter became known to all who dwelt in Jerusalem.”

Jerome says in De penitentia, Distinction 3: It profited Judas nothing to perform a penance through which he could not correct his crime. For if a brother sins against a brother in such a way that he can make amends, it can be forgiven him. If the deeds remain, penance is undertaken in vain. Thus Jerome.

Pope Leo likewise says: O Judas, you proved more wicked than all and more unhappy; penance did not call you back to God, but despair drew you to the noose, and so forth. This is in De penitentia, Distinction 3.

Taking the silver pieces, the chief priests said: “It is not lawful to put”—that is, return—“them into the corbona,” that is, the place of offerings, “because it is the price of blood.” Having taken counsel, they bought with them the potter’s field for the burial of foreigners. They wished to cover the cruelty of their crime beneath a work of piety, namely the purchase of a field for burial. But lest their crime remain hidden from the world, by God’s dispensation that purchased field was called Acheldemach, which in Latin means “Field of Blood.”

In this deed Matthew the Evangelist shows that Jeremiah’s prophecy was fulfilled, which says: “They took”—namely the chief priests—“the thirty silver pieces, the price of the one appraised”; that is, thirty silver pieces were the price of Christ, who was appraised. “Whom they appraised,” that is, whom the Jews themselves offered for a price. “And they took them from the children of Israel,” that is, from Judas, who was one of the children of Israel. The plural is put for the singular, because he cast them into the Temple. “And they gave them for the potter’s field,” namely to buy the field for the burial of foreigners. This prophecy is also found in part in Zechariah 13 [read: Zechariah 11:12–13].

As to the fifth consideration, § V: the examination and decision of his case before Pilate

John says that the attendants of the Jews led Jesus “to Caiaphas into the praetorium,” and they themselves did not enter the praetorium, lest they be defiled, but so that they might eat the Passover. Pilate therefore went out to them.

A praetorium means the praetor’s seat, that is, a place for giving judgment. The expression is obscure, because when it is said that the Jews did not enter the praetorium, it appears to speak of Pilate’s praetorium. Since he was a Gentile, they thought that entering his house during that solemnity would defile them, that is, make them unclean. But how was it said just before that the Jews led Christ into the praetorium to Caiaphas?

Augustine reconciles this as follows. In Caiaphas’s house, which was broad and spacious, there was both Caiaphas’s praetorium, where he judged certain matters, and, in another part of the house, Pilate’s praetorium, where he also judged in cases of blood. Thus Christ was led from one praetorium, namely Caiaphas’s, to the other, namely Pilate’s.

Or it may be that Caiaphas, leaving Jesus in his own palace, went to Pilate’s house to give him some information. Caiaphas nevertheless did not wish to enter Pilate’s praetorium with his companions because Pilate was a Gentile; rather, Pilate went out to him and his associates. Then Caiaphas, returning to his own palace, sent Jesus bound to Pilate.

Pilate therefore went out to them and said: “What accusation do you bring against this man?” But they answered, as John reports: “If this man were not an evildoer, we would not have handed him over to you.” Pilate said to them: “Take him yourselves and judge him according to your Law,” namely, since you do not state his wrongdoing to me.

They answered: “It is not lawful for us to put anyone to death.” For because they were subject to the Romans, the Jews did not possess jurisdiction in a capital case. Rather, this belonged to the governor whom the Romans sent there to rule them. At that time Pontius Pilate was governor on behalf of the Romans.

Pilate said to them: “What evil has this man done?” They then explained, saying according to Luke: “We have found this man subverting our nation, forbidding tribute to be given to Caesar, and saying that he is Christ, a king.”

All these things were false. He was not subverting the nation by seeking to gather a people for sedition, but was converting it to salvation by instilling humility and subjection. Nor did he forbid tax or tribute to be given to Caesar. Rather, when a question on this subject had been put to him by certain people, he answered: “Render to Caesar the things that are Caesar’s.” Nor did he make himself a king. When the people whom he had satisfied with five barley loaves and two fish wished to make him king, he fled; and he walked as a poor man among the poor and meek.

Pilate therefore passed over the first two charges as frivolous and false. Entering the praetorium, he questioned Jesus about the third, saying: “Are you the King of the Jews?” Jesus answered, as John reports: “Do you say this of yourself, or have others told you about me,” namely that I am King of the Jews?

Pilate answered him: “Am I a Jew? Your nation and your chief priests have handed you over to me.” It is as though he said: I am not a Jew, so as to know your manner of life; but the Jews, who know your deeds, have given you into my hands. “What, therefore, have you done? Explain for what cause they led you to me bound as a guilty man.”

Jesus answered him, as John alone narrates: “My kingdom is not of this world.” It is as though he said: I do not conduct myself as a temporal king, nor do I usurp royal dignity for myself as my nation charged. Rather, I walk as one poor, needy, and abject. “For if my kingdom were of this world, my attendants would certainly strive that I not be handed over to the Jews.” They would fight for me and defend me, lest my adversaries prevail against me. “But now my kingdom is not from here.” For the spiritual kingdom of virtues, which leads to the eternal kingdom, was what he sought for us and what he suffered in order to confer upon us.

When Pilate asked him, “What have you done?” Jesus could have answered: These are the things I have done among this people. I brought their father Abraham out of Ur of the Chaldeans. I was the protector of him, Isaac, and Jacob wherever they walked. I sent Joseph ahead into Egypt to sustain them during the Egyptian famine, establishing him there as though a lord. I led them out of Pharaoh’s harsh servitude, after the Egyptians had been struck with many plagues and finally submerged in the sea. I chose this people as my peculiar people from all nations, giving them my Law. I fed them with manna in the desert for forty years. I led them into the Promised Land after its inhabitants had been conquered, and so forth.

Finally, assuming flesh from them, I associated humbly among them. I bestowed benefits upon them all, performing innumerable healings. I restored sight to the blind, walking to the lame, hearing to the deaf, speech to the mute, cleanness to lepers, and life to the dead. I gave pardon to sinners, joy to the sorrowful, grace to many, and the teaching of wisdom to the ignorant. These, Pilate, are the things I have done, for which they can accuse me, if these things are worthy of accusation.

Then Pilate said to him: “Therefore you are a king,” namely because you have a kingdom, even if it is not of this world. Jesus answered: “You say it,” namely the truth, “because I am a king,” and rightly so. For I possess all dominion and am above all things; to me every knee of those in heaven, on earth, and under the earth is bent.

“For this I was born,” he adds, “and for this I came into the world: that I might bear witness to the truth” by reproving vices and confuting errors. Because truth produces hatred, the Jews, unwilling that their vices be reproved, contrived his death out of hatred. “Everyone who is of the truth”—that is, one who delights in truth, or who is begotten by grace from God, who is truth—“hears my voice” by observing my most true teaching.

Pilate said to him: “What is truth?” Pilate did not wait for an answer, panting for his release. For Matthew and Mark say that he knew they had handed him over through envy.

Pilate therefore went out to them, saying: “I find no cause of death in this man.” But they cried out, saying: “He has stirred up the whole people,” namely by making seditions and gathering peoples to himself for rebellion, “teaching from Galilee as far as here,” namely in Judea.

Hearing Galilee named, as Luke reports, Pilate asked and learned that Jesus was a Galilean, that is, that he had been brought up and had lived in Galilee. He sent Jesus, bound and accompanied by his accusers, to Herod, king of Galilee, who had then come to Jerusalem for that solemnity, as one belonging to Herod’s jurisdiction and judgment because he was his subject.

When Herod saw Jesus brought before him, he greatly rejoiced, for he had long desired to see him because he had heard many things concerning him and hoped to see some sign performed by him. The chief priests also stood before Herod, accusing Jesus of many things. Herod questioned him on many matters, but Jesus answered none of them, because Herod sought those things not for the sake of truth but from curiosity.

When Herod perceived this, he despised Jesus together with his army. Clothing him in a white linen garment as a madman, he sent him back to Pilate. From this bestowal of honor which Pilate made to Herod, Herod and Pilate became friends with each other, although they had previously been enemies.

That hostility had arisen because Pilate seemed to have disturbed Herod’s jurisdiction by killing a certain Judas the Galilean, who had gathered many men to himself as though making himself prince of the Jewish people, while they were occupied with sacrifices on a certain mountain.

When Jesus was returned to Pilate, Pilate said: “You have brought me this man as though he were subverting the people; and behold, questioning him before you, I find no cause in him concerning the things of which you accuse him. Nor does Herod, for he sent him back to us, and behold, nothing worthy of death has been done by him. I shall therefore correct him and release him.”

But they cried out, saying: “Crucify him, crucify him.” Pilate therefore thought that if he caused Jesus to be scourged harshly, the Jews, moved by compassion, would seek no further penalty or punishment for him. Pilate therefore seized Jesus and scourged him, as John reports. The Psalm shows that this scourging was prolonged, saying in his person: “I was scourged all day,” that is, for a great part of the day. Isaiah 52 [read: Isaiah 53:5] says: “The chastisement of our peace was upon him, and by his bruise,” namely from the dreadful blows, “we are healed.”

Pilate led him outside after he had been scourged and said: “Behold the man.” It is as though he said: Does he not seem sufficiently chastised to you? But they cried: “Crucify him, crucify him.” Pilate said: “I find no cause of death in him. Yet you have a custom that I release to you one of those bound,” namely one worthy of death.

The Jews had introduced this custom so that, in memory of the benefit received from God in such a solemnity—namely the liberation of that people from the death of the firstborn and from the deadly Egyptian servitude—one of the captured evildoers who was to be punished with death would be granted free to the people, while the others would be judged to death. The Roman governors preserved this custom for them.

Pilate therefore said to them: “Which of the two do you wish to be released: Jesus, who is called Christ, or Barabbas?” According to John, Barabbas was a robber; according to the others, also a murderer, because he had committed murder during a sedition.

But the chief priests persuaded the crowds to ask for Barabbas. They all therefore cried: “Not this man, but Barabbas.” Pilate said to them: “What then shall I do with Jesus, who is called Christ?” They answered: “Let him be crucified.” Pilate said: “Take him yourselves and crucify him, for I find no cause in him.”

They answered: “We have a Law, and according to our Law he ought to die because he made himself the Son of God.” Seeing that Pilate was striving for his release, they said: “If you release this man, you are not Caesar’s friend. For everyone who makes himself a king opposes Caesar.”

When Pilate heard this, he feared more—but with worldly fear, lest he incur Caesar’s indignation if accused and be deprived of that dignity. Pilate therefore entered the praetorium again and asked Jesus: “Where are you from?” But Jesus gave no answer.

Pilate said: “Do you not speak to me? Do you not know that I have power to crucify you and to release you?” Jesus answered: “You would have no power at all over me unless it had been given you from above,” namely by God’s permission. “Therefore, the one who handed me over to you has the greater sin.”

It is as though he said: Even if you do this with God’s permission, you are nevertheless not excused from sin in condemning me, since you yourself say that you have power to release me, and you have already confessed publicly that you found no cause of death in me; yet you do not release me. Your sin, however, is not so grave, since it proceeds from weakness, as that of the Jews who handed me over to you for death, since theirs proceeds from malice.

Seeing therefore that he accomplished nothing, but that a greater tumult arose as they demanded with loud voices that Jesus be crucified, Pilate released Barabbas to them as they asked. He led Jesus outside and sat at the tribunal in a place called Lichostratos [read: Lithostrotos], and in Hebrew Gabbatha. It was the Preparation of the Passover, at about the sixth hour.

Mark, however, says that they crucified him at the third hour. Augustine resolves this apparent discrepancy in a perilous way in De penitentia, Distinction 1, as follows: Christ was crucified at the third hour by voices, namely by the Jews’ tongues as they demanded it, which Mark records; but he was actually crucified by the hands of the Gentiles at the sixth hour, as John reports.

As to the sixth consideration, § VI: the execution of the sentence of the cross

While Pilate was seated at the tribunal, his wife sent to him, as Matthew testifies, saying: “Have nothing to do with that just man.” It is as though she said: Take care not to pass sentence against him. “For I have suffered many things this night because of him,” namely terrible visions and threats.

It is believed that because the devil began to perceive that Jesus was the Redeemer of the human race and to sense the power of the cross, since he felt the fathers in limbo already exulting over the liberation they awaited, he therefore tried to impede it. Accordingly, in dreams he sent Pilate’s wife visions threatening evils that would happen to Pilate if he condemned Christ, so that after hearing these things Pilate might withdraw. But the devil could accomplish nothing.

For when Pilate said, almost in mockery, “Behold your king,” they cried: “Away with him, away with him; crucify him.” Pilate asked them: “Shall I crucify your king?” They answered: “We have no king but Caesar.”

Then, as Matthew says, Pilate took water before the people and washed his hands, saying: “I am innocent of the blood of this just man.” It is as though he said: Insofar as it rests with me, I do not condemn him, knowing that he is just; but your insistence compels me to condemn him. “See to it yourselves.”

Certainly this did not excuse him, because a judge must never condemn an innocent person contrary to the order and form of law in order to avoid any evil or scandal whatsoever, as happened here.

The people cried: “His blood be upon us and upon our children.” It is as though they said: If you sin in this, let the penalty and vengeance for this sin come upon us and our children. This imprecation certainly befell them. For in punishment of so great a crime Jerusalem was captured, countless thousands of people died by the sword, pestilence, and famine, and those who remained were sold as slaves and dispersed throughout the world.

When sentence had therefore been given against Jesus that he should be crucified, the governor’s soldiers gathered the whole cohort around him, as Matthew testifies. Stripping him of his garments, they placed around him a scarlet cloak, namely of a red color, like a purple robe. Plaiting a crown of thorns, they placed it upon his head in place of a crown. This crown or wreath is said to have been made of hard, long thorns which pierced his head as far as the brain. They gave him a reed in his hand and struck his head.

Finally, after these insults and mockeries, they removed the scarlet cloak, dressed him in his own garments, and led him to the place of Calvary, accompanied by two robbers who had also been condemned to the cross for their crimes. Thus Isaiah 53’s prophecy was fulfilled: “He was numbered among the wicked.”

He carried the cross for himself according to the figure of Isaac, who carried upon his shoulders the wood upon which he was to be stretched out and killed. Chrysostom says that at that place where Jesus was crucified, not Abraham’s son but a ram whose head was caught in thorns was also killed, because not the Son of God the Father, but the humanity of the Church’s leader, crowned with thorns, died.

“And carrying the cross for himself.” Theophilus says that here Isaiah’s saying is fulfilled: “The government was placed upon his shoulder.” For Jesus’s government is the cross, because of which God exalted him, according to the Apostle. Just as others carry a belt or a miter as the sign of their dignity, so Christ carried the cross. If you inquire, you will find that Jesus reigns in us in no other way than through hardships, from which it follows that those devoted to pleasures are Christ’s enemies.

But because Jesus had been weakened by the scourges, thorns, and night watches with which he had been afflicted, he walked slowly with the cross. The Jews feared lest, because of this delay, Pilate—whom they had seen pass sentence as though unwillingly—revoke it and grant him life. Finding on the way a certain man named Simon of Cyrene, coming from a village, the father of Alexander and Rufus, as Matthew and Mark report, they compelled him to carry Jesus’s cross so that Jesus could walk more quickly.

Simon carried the cross behind Jesus because, according to Ambrose, it was fitting that Christ first raise the trophy of the cross himself and afterward hand it over to the martyrs to be raised. This Simon was not a Jew, but a foreigner and pilgrim, because he was a Cyrenian. Nor did he carry the cross before Jesus, but after him; for the Gentile people, not the Jewish, follows and bears the cross, fulfilling the saying: “Let him take up his cross and follow me.”

Coming from a village, he embraces the cross and, leaving pagan rites behind, follows Christ’s footsteps, Bede says. For villa is said in Latin and pagos in Greek; hence pagans are named from pagos. Simon is interpreted “obedient,” because he obeys the divine precepts.

A great multitude of the people’s women followed him, who lamented and bewailed him, compassionating him out of devotion. Jesus turned to them and comforted them, as Luke alone reports, saying: “Daughters of Jerusalem, do not weep over me as I am about to die, because a glorious Resurrection will quickly undo death, and my death itself will destroy death and the author of death, the devil,” Bede says. “Rather, weep over yourselves and your children,” namely because of the evils that will come upon you.

“For behold, days will come in which they shall say: Blessed are the barren, and the wombs which have not borne, and the breasts which have not nursed.” He said this because of the future siege by the Romans, during which they came to such a calamity of famine that some mothers ate their own children.

“Then,” seeing themselves in such great straits, “they shall begin to say to the mountains: Fall upon us; and to the hills: Cover us.” Bede reports that Josephus says that when the Romans pressed upon them, the Jews sought the caves of mountains and hills in troops in order to escape.

“For if they do these things in the green wood, what will be done in the dry?” According to Theophilus: If the Romans do this to me, who am green wood bearing fruit through virtue, what will they do to the Jewish people, dry and fruitless? Or, according to Bede: If I, who am without sin and am called the wood of life, do not depart from this world without the fire of the Passion, what torment do you think hangs over those who are empty of the fruits of good works?

After they came to the place called Calvary, they crucified him there. Some, like the Hebrews, wished to say that it was called the place of Calvary because Adam’s skull—that is, the head of the first man—was buried there. But Jerome rejects this because Adam’s tomb is said to be in Hebron. Bede says instead that outside the gate were places where the heads of condemned people were cut off, and therefore it was called the place of Calvary. Thus the innocent one is crucified as though guilty among the guilty for the salvation of all, so that where sin abounded, grace might abound yet more.

Before fastening him to the cross, they gave him myrrhed wine, that is, wine mixed with the most bitter myrrh; or, as Matthew says, wine mixed with gall. The Jews had a custom, still observed among Christians in many places, that when weakened guilty persons were led to death, they should be fortified against its horror with confections and the best wine. In place of this, to increase Christ’s punishment, they gave him myrrhed wine.

When they stripped him of all his garments, they renewed his wounds. For since his whole body had been torn or flayed by the harshest scourges, the garments he had put on again adhered firmly to his flesh. They could not now be separated from it without great pain and wounding, as happens to wounds when their bandages are removed.

None of the Evangelists explains the manner of the crucifixion. Hence, according to some, it could have been done by laying the cross upon the ground, fastening Jesus’s body to it by his hands and feet, and then raising it. Or they may first have raised the cross and set and secured its trunk in the earth, and afterward fastened his body upon it, someone supporting the body while his hands and then his feet were fastened with iron nails, which were quite thick, as is shown.

Because from the fastening and the greatest pain the sinews were drawn back and the limbs shortened, when they fastened the second hand and the feet they also drew the other arm and the feet violently with a rope to such a degree that all the bones of his body could be counted. Thus was fulfilled what the Psalm foretold in Christ’s person: “They pierced my hands and my feet; they counted all my bones.” No history teaches that this was fulfilled in David or another person of that people, but in our Lord Jesus Christ.

The title containing the cause of death was written on a small tablet in Greek, Latin, and Hebrew letters, so that those who had assembled from every nation on the feast day could read it. The tablet was fastened to a peg placed in the middle of the upper part of the cross, toward which Jesus’s head hung. For the cross was by itself in the shape of a tau and had nothing above the transverse beam; rather, a peg with the tablet was added, as has been said.

The writing of the title was: “Jesus of Nazareth, King of the Jews.” John alone reports that because the place where he was crucified was near the city, though outside Jerusalem, almost everyone from the city went to see it. This was for Jesus the greatest punishment of shame, according to the Psalm: “All day my shame is before me, and the confusion of my face has covered me,” and so forth.

When the chief priests read the inscription, judging it an injury to themselves that their king had been crucified, they said to Pilate: “Do not say that he is the King of the Jews, but that he said, ‘I am King of the Jews,’” so that it might appear that he was crucified for this arrogance and ambition by which he wished to make himself king.

Pilate answered: “What I have written, I have written,” that is, I will that inscription to remain established in this form. God arranged this because Christ truly is King of the Jews—literally, both of the Jews and of all nations; morally, King of the Jews, that is, of those who confess, for “Judas” is interpreted “confession” or “one who confesses.” He is in a special manner the King—that is, the one who reigns by grace and afterward by glory—of those who confess by believing the articles of faith, disclosing their own defects to a priest, and giving thanks in divine praises.

The Gentile soldiers who fastened him to the cross, Pilate’s executioners, divided his garments among themselves by lot, determining who should receive what. All the Evangelists narrate this, but John does so more fully. He says that the four soldiers who crucified him made four parts of the garments, giving his part to each. But they did not divide his tunic, which was seamless and woven from above throughout, that is, made with a needle, saying: “Let us not tear it, but let us cast lots for it, whose it shall be.”

John adduces the Psalmist as having foretold this, saying in Christ’s person: “They who crucified me parted,” or divided, “my garments among themselves, and upon my garment they cast lots,” that is, upon the seamless tunic.

Augustine says: By saying, “They divided his garments, casting lots,” Matthew wished it to be understood that the tunic concerning which they cast the lot also belonged to the entire division of the garments. Luke’s statement is of the same kind: “Dividing his garments, they cast lots.” In dividing, they came to the tunic about which the casting of the lot was done. By saying “lots” in the plural, however, he put the plural for the singular.

Mark alone appears to have introduced a question. By saying, “Casting a lot over them, who should take what,” he seems to have spoken as though the lot was cast over all the garments, not only over the tunic.

But this brevity also creates obscurity. For “casting a lot over them” was said as though it meant: casting a lot while the garments were being divided. What he says, “who should take what,” means who should take the tunic, as though he had stated the whole matter thus: “Casting a lot over them, who should take the tunic which remained beyond the equal parts.”

Spiritually, the fourfold garment of our Lord Jesus Christ figured his fourfold Church, spread throughout the four parts of the world and distributed equally—that is, harmoniously—among them. But that tunic assigned by lot signifies the unity of all the parts, which is held together by the bond of charity. Since charity possesses a more excellent way and rises above knowledge and above all the commandments, the garment that signifies it is rightly woven from above. John added “throughout,” because no one who is found to belong to the whole is without charity; from that whole the Church is called catholic. It is seamless so that it may never be torn, and it comes to one man because it gathers all into one.

In the lot, moreover, the grace of God was commended. For when a lot is cast, the outcome is decided not according to anyone’s person or merits, but by a hidden judgment. Thus Augustine.

I omit here an account of why Christ endured death on a cross rather than another death.

Matthew and Mark say that the crowds passing by blasphemed him, saying: “Ha! You who destroy the Temple of God and rebuild it in three days!” The chief priests also mocked him with the scribes and elders, saying: “He saved others; he cannot save himself.” It is as though they said: Now it appears that he did not truly heal the sick, but did so by the power of Belzebub. “If he is the Son of God, let him now come down from the cross, and we shall believe him. For he said, ‘I am the Son of God.’” Pilate’s soldiers likewise mocked him, saying: “If you are the King of the Jews, save yourself.”

Remaining upon the cross, Jesus endured so many immense pains, so many mockeries and insults. According to Luke alone, the first word he spoke upon the cross instructed us in the love of enemies, for he said: “Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do.”

Contrary to all justice, it is shown that he, most innocent and without any sin, was injured to the utmost in every respect by those whom he had always benefited, and by the people whom he had taken as his peculiar people: in his substance, when his garments were taken from him; in his reputation, by insults and blasphemies; and in his person, when he was condemned to a most shameful and bitter death. Yet he prayed for them, saying: “Father, forgive them,” and so forth. Thus Isaiah 53’s prophecy was fulfilled: “He prayed for transgressors,” that is, for those acting against the Law, lest they perish.

When two robbers had been crucified with him, one on the right and the other on the left, Matthew and Mark say briefly that those crucified with him cast the same reproaches at him and reviled him. But Luke expresses this more fully, saying that one of the robbers, namely the one on the left, blasphemed him, saying: “If you are Christ, save yourself and us.”

It must therefore be said either that when Matthew and Mark speak of both robbers reviling Christ, the plural is put for the singular, because only one of them did so, as Luke says; or, if both reviled Christ, they did so at the beginning. Afterward, however, the one on the right, moved to repentance, rebuked his companion and commended himself to Christ, saying, “Remember me,” and so forth, as Luke relates.

Hence Luke adds: “But the other, answering, rebuked him, saying: Do you not even fear God, since you are under the same condemnation,” namely as these faithless Jews who crucified this man so innocently? “And we indeed justly,” that is, we have been condemned because of our crimes, “for we receive things worthy of our deeds; but this man has done no evil.” And he said to Jesus: “Lord, remember me when you come into your kingdom.”

Jesus said to him, in what was the second word: “Amen I say to you, today you shall be with me in paradise.” This certainly was true. For when Jesus died, on that day his soul, separated from his body and joined to the divinity, descended to the limbo of the fathers. After Christ’s death, the soul of this robber, itself separated from his body, also descended—not to the hell of the damned or to purgatory, but to limbo. There, seeing Christ’s divinity clearly, it was blessed. This is truly paradise: namely, a place which prepares one for the vision of God.

“Today you shall be with me,” and so forth. Jerome says: That you may esteem the little highly, and that, as a rich shepherd, you may not despise a diseased sheep, Christ carried the robber from the cross into paradise; and lest anyone think repentance ever too late, he made the punishment for homicide into martyrdom. This is in De penitentia, Distinction 1, canon Importuna.

Pope Julius says here: True confession can be made at the very end, just as the robber, by the repentance of one moment, merited to be in paradise at the hour of his last confession. This is in Cause 26, Question 6, canon Si presbyter.

Augustine says: He who is abandoned by his sins before he abandons them condemns them not freely, but as though by necessity. For although the robber merited pardon at the end for every crime, he did not thereby give the baptized authority to sin and persevere in sin. He was then baptized for the first time, namely with the baptism of the Spirit, because he then confessed Christ for the first time upon the cross. This is in De penitentia, Distinction 7, canon Nullus.

Truly marvelous, however, was this robber’s devotion and faith. He had not seen Christ perform a miracle, nor seen him preaching or surrounded by crowds thirsting for his teaching, but only crucified with him, while all the leading men—namely, the chief priests, soldiers, and doctors of the Law—mocked and reproached him, and while his own companion did the same. Yet he venerated him as God, confessing his own offenses, rebuking his companion and all who injured Christ, not fearing the Jews’ savagery, but humbly commending himself to him and saying: “Remember me,” and so forth.

The Apostle Peter and the others deny him, and the people deride him, but this man commends himself to him, acknowledges him as king, and thus commends himself. Jesus, as though forgetful of his own torments, comforted him because of his conversion and faith, promising him the greatest reward: “Today,” he said, “you shall be with me,” and so forth.

The great labor of Christ’s Passion was sufficient for the redemption of all—not only of this world, but of a thousand worlds, if they existed. Yet Jesus, now seeing no fruit follow except the conversion of a single robber, did not despise even this least one, but gathered him also.

The mother of Jesus stood beside the cross, together with his mother’s sister, Mary of Cleophas, and Mary Magdalene. John alone reports this concerning Jesus’s mother and John himself. She stood distressed by grief and wounded by bitterness, but erect in mind and understanding and confirmed in the will of God, which she knew to be that her Son should suffer for the redemption of the human race.

Although all the male and female disciples had fallen away from faith in his divinity, she alone stood firm in faith. Because she knew that the one who suffered was the Son of God, she grieved most deeply at so great an offense committed against God. No mother ever loved her son as much as she loved hers: not only because he was her only-begotten, but because he was generated wholly from her without a father; because he was the best and holiest; and because he was true God. Likewise, no mother ever experienced so great a grief at her son’s death.

Then Simeon’s prophecy was fulfilled: “A sword shall pierce your own soul,” namely the sword of his Passion. Hence the pains which other women endure in childbirth were reserved for her in her Son’s Passion, so that the Psalm’s words might fittingly apply to her: “There were pains as of a woman in labor.” Nor did any martyr ever endure so great a punishment in his torments as the Virgin Mary did beside her Son’s cross. Hence, as Jerome says, she was more than a martyr.

When Jesus saw his mother, lest he seem to have forgotten her, he showed in this the devotion which children ought to display toward their parents and the provision they ought to make for them, as far as possible, when they depart from them. He said to his mother: “Woman, behold your son.” He did not wish to say “Mother,” lest by naming her so he wound her heart more deeply with grief. Rather, “woman” expresses her sex, not a violation of her virginity.

“Behold your son.” It is as though he said: This humanity which is seen is your son who suffers; and because this humanity is to be dissolved through death, behold, lest you remain alone, John shall be your son in my place. He, a virgin, shall be joined to a virgin. For it is believed that her spouse Joseph was then dead; otherwise Christ would not have commended her to anyone other than her spouse, had he been living, as is said in Cause 27, Question 2.

Then he said to the disciple, namely John—although John does not name himself, just as elsewhere he does not name himself when speaking about himself—“Behold your mother,” that is, have her commended to you as a mother. The greatest treasure which I leave on earth I leave to no one other than you, loved above the rest: behold your mother. From that hour John received her as his own mother, or into his care.

Incomparable indeed was this exchange, in which a disciple is given to Mary in place of the Master, a servant in place of the Lord, a little stream in place of the fountain of wisdom, a nephew in place of her Son, and a creature in place of the Creator. Yet she humbly acquiesced in what her Son instituted.

From the sixth hour until the ninth, as all the Evangelists report, darkness came over the whole earth, for the sun suffered an eclipse. This could not have happened naturally. A natural eclipse occurs through the moon’s interposition between the sun and us when the sun itself, in its course, is above our hemisphere. But it was then the fifteenth day of the first month, because according to the Law the feast of Unleavened Bread then began, and the moon stood directly opposite the sun. Thus, when the sun was in the middle of our hemisphere at the sixth hour of the day, the moon was in the middle of the hemisphere beneath or below us. Therefore, an eclipse could not occur naturally.

When Dionysius the Areopagite, a very great philosopher, saw this while he was then in Egypt, and perceived that the eclipse was not natural, he said: “Either the God of nature suffers, or the structure of the whole world shall soon be dissolved.” The second has not yet happened, but the first was indeed fulfilled, because Jesus, true God and man, suffered. The Athenians then constructed an altar in honor of the one who suffered at that time, inscribing upon it: “To the unknown God.” Moreover, while other eclipses of the sun do not last for an hour, this one remained for three hours.

According to the literal sense, the Jews’ iniquity and cruelty were so great that the sun itself, as though unable to bear so great an injury to its Creator, withdrew its rays from them and, as though compassionating his death, clothed itself in darkness as in black.

Spiritually, the pain of this Passion was so great that the sun of our understanding is eclipsed and darkened in trying to understand it, nor can it comprehend it fully. Because of the immensity of this pain, Christ cried out with a loud voice, according to Matthew and Mark: “Eli, Eli,” and so forth, that is, “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?”

These words are originally taken from Psalm 21, where David speaks in Christ’s person throughout the whole Psalm concerning his Passion. For he says: “My God, look upon me; why have you forsaken me? The words of my offenses cause me to be far from my bodily salvation.” He calls the sins of his members—that is, of the human race for whom he suffered—his own offenses.

He says that he was forsaken by God, not because the divinity was separated from the humanity, for it never abandoned the humanity after assuming it, but because the divinity withheld its power: it did not prevent them from that deed or deliver him from their hands, but permitted them to do to him what pleased them. Or he says that he was forsaken by God because the intellectual part, which even then enjoyed God with the highest joy, caused no refreshment or consolation to flow into the sensitive part.

When he was distressed and dried up in his spirits by his immense pains, he spoke the fifth word, as John alone reports: “I thirst.” He thirsted not only bodily but also mentally, ardently desiring that the fruit of his Passion be extended to all, and that its power be communicated to all martyrs and to those suffering adversities for him, so that by the merit of his Passion they might be made patient and strong.

As the Apostle says in Hebrews, Jesus, praying with tears upon the cross and with a strong cry, “was heard for his reverence,” so that all who devoutly receive the sacraments in which the power of the Passion remains may attain salvation.

When he had thus cried out, a certain man carrying a vessel full of sour wine mixed with gall or with the bitterest myrrh dipped a sponge and filled it with that most bitter liquid. Placing the sponge upon a reed of hyssop, he put it to Jesus’s mouth for him to drink.

Certain others among the Roman attendants, who did not understand the Hebrew language, had heard Jesus previously cry, “Eli, Eli,” and so forth. They said to the man offering the sponge for him to drink: “This man calls Elijah. Let him be, to see whether Elijah may come to take him down.” But when Jesus had tasted it, he would not drink because of its bitterness.

David’s prophecy in Christ’s person was fulfilled: “They gave me gall for my food, and in my thirst they gave me vinegar to drink.” When the Jews condemned someone to that death, they were accustomed to carry a vessel of the best wine to strengthen him. But now, to afflict Christ more greatly, they gave him sour wine mixed with gall, in which they signified their own malice.

That people was like a sponge: empty of virtues, cavernous with pretenses, full of the vinegar of cold malice where previously, in the fathers, there had been the good wine of charity, and mixed with the gall of most bitter hatred and envy. Jesus therefore refused to drink—that is, to incorporate such a people into his Church—but cast it away from himself.

When he had therefore taken the vinegar, not by drinking but by tasting, he said, as John alone testifies: “It is consummated,” the sixth word; that is, what was foretold and prefigured concerning my Passion has been fulfilled. Hence, in the preceding days, when he foretold his Passion to the Apostles, he had said: “Behold, we go up to Jerusalem, and all things written concerning the Son of Man shall be accomplished.” Knowing, therefore, that all things had been fulfilled, he said: “It is consummated.”

All those sacrifices commanded in the Law, and many other ceremonies, prefigured this Passion.

Chapters Six–Seven

Once all those things had been fulfilled, they all ceased and lost their power. Hence he said: “It is consummated”: the true and prefigured sacrifice has been consummated.

He had been afflicted upon the cross in all his other senses: in touch, because his hands and feet, in which touch is especially vigorous, were fastened with nails; in sight, by seeing the mockeries and cruelties of the Jews; in hearing, by hearing the insults and blasphemies directed against him; and in smell, by sensing the stench of the corpses which were in that place. Taste alone remained unharmed upon the cross. The whole rest of his body had been tormented and broken by the scourges and the crowning.

The first Adam, when he brought death upon the whole human race, offended sight by looking upon the tree or fruit and seeing that it was beautiful to behold; and it is likely that it was fragrant, affecting smell. He offended hearing by listening to the serpent’s words, to God’s injury; touch when he took the forbidden apple; and taste when, by eating, he experienced the food’s sweetness. Through these senses, as though through gates, sin entered the world. It was therefore fitting that the manifold art of the traitorous devil should be deceived by art, and that a remedy should be brought from the place where the enemy had wounded.

Therefore, after tasting the bitterness of the drink, Christ said: “It is consummated,” that is, the payment of the human race’s debt has been completed.

Moreover, the marriage contracted between Christ and the Church—initiated among the patriarchs and prophets through promises, even sworn promises, and ratified in his Incarnation—was consummated upon the cross, by whose power the Church, cleansed, was united to Christ. There the fullness of his love toward us was shown most fully, which is the end of every consummation according to the Psalm.

§ VII

Finally, bowing his head and saying, “Father, into your hands I commend my spirit,” which was the seventh and final word, as Luke alone testifies, he gave up his spirit—that is, his soul. It was then separated from his body and, joined to the divinity, descended to the limbo of the fathers.

“I commend it,” he said, “into the hands of your power,” so that I may reassume the flesh; “into the hands of your mercy and kindness,” so that I may visit the souls who were in the punishments of darkness; “into the hands of your will,” so that it may always serve you according to that will.

This word is taken from the Psalm, where it says: “Into your hands I commend my spirit; you have redeemed me, O Lord, God of truth.” This appears to be explained thus: O Lord, who are God, the author of truth, you have redeemed me by your death, in which you said: “Into your hands I commend my spirit.”

Then all insensible things seemed to suffer with him and to grieve at the death of their Lord. The earth was moved; the rocks were split; and the Temple veil which stood before the Holy of Holies was divided from the top to the bottom, so that the Holy of Holies lay open, signifying that the heavenly kingdom, previously closed to us, had now been opened. Darkness came over the whole earth. The tombs were opened.

As Matthew says by anticipation, however, many bodies of the saints arose. This certainly happened, not then, but when Christ arose. They came into Jerusalem and appeared to many, reporting—as may piously be believed—the divinity of Christ, the redemption of the human race accomplished through his Passion, and the visitation of the fathers in limbo.

Many of the simpler Jews or Gentiles, seeing signs of this kind, were pierced in heart. Returning to repentance, they struck their breasts, confessing the sin they had committed by cooperating in Christ’s Passion and saying: “Truly this man was just.” The centurion whom Pilate had sent to carry out the sentence was himself pierced in heart and said: “Truly this man was the Son of God.”

When evening came, the Jews approached Pilate because they did not wish those bodies to remain on their crosses on the following Sabbath, which was more solemn than the other days of that feast, so that the feast might not appear dishonored. They asked that they be permitted to kill those on the crosses by breaking their legs and then take them down.

When Pilate granted this to them, his attendants came. Because the robbers were still alive upon the cross, they broke their legs, and the robbers died from the vehemence of the pain caused by this breaking of their bones.

The soul of the one who was on the right, commonly called Dismas, descended to the limbo of the fathers and was immediately glorified by the vision of the divine essence, to which Christ’s soul was united. Thus he possessed the paradise promised to him. The other robber, called Gesmas, died impenitent and descended to the place of the damned.

In these two robbers all elect and reprobate human beings were figured. We were all robbers in our first parents, existing in them according to seminal power, because they sought to steal divinity, so far as lay in them, when the serpent said to them: “You shall be as gods.” Augustine says that, in desiring this, they wished to seize dignity and lost happiness.

Because of this robbery, we are all condemned to the cross of the penalties of this life and to death, but with this difference: the reprobate suffer the cross of their punishments without the fruit of salvation, because they neither repent nor acknowledge themselves. At the end of their life they blaspheme, and therefore they are damned. But the elect, confessing their sins and humbling themselves before God, attain glory—not by their own power, but by Christ’s mercy and by the power of his Passion.

Christ, like the bronze serpent—that is, without the venom of sin, yet possessing flesh like ours who are sinners—was suspended upon the wood of the cross in order to pay the debt of our theft, according to the Psalm: “What I did not steal, I then paid,” Christ says, namely upon the cross.

Hence the Apostle says in Philippians 2: “Although he was in the form of God”—namely Jesus, that is, true God—“he did not consider it robbery to be equal with God,” as the first parents did, inasmuch as he was man; “but emptied himself, becoming obedient unto death, even the death of the cross.”

When the attendants came to Jesus and saw that he was dead, they did not break his legs, so that the Scripture concerning the lamb that figured him might be fulfilled, as John says. This is found in Exodus 12: “You shall not break a bone of it.” Rather, one of those Gentile soldiers thrust his lance directly against Christ’s side, inflicting a great wound, and immediately blood and water came out of his side, as John alone testifies.

That prophecy of Zechariah was fulfilled: “They shall look upon him whom they pierced.” This soldier was called Longinus. Afterward, converted to the faith, he endured martyrdom for Christ. Some also say that because he was nearly blind—that is, he saw little or nothing—he suddenly saw perfectly when a drop of the blood touched his eyes.

Christ’s true humanity, like ours, was also shown by these things. Hence it is said in First John 5: “There are three who give testimony on earth,” namely concerning Christ’s true humanity—for man originates from earth—“the Spirit, the water, and the blood.” That Christ possessed a spirit, that is, a soul, is evident because, bowing his head as stated above, he gave up the spirit, commending that spirit, namely his soul, to God. The water and blood which came from his side, the two fluids best known and most abundant in our body, showed that his body was true and not imaginary, because an imaginary body does not possess blood or water.

Spiritually, they signify the Church’s sacraments, because these possess their power from Christ’s Passion. Baptism, which is the first of the sacraments and greatest in effect, is signified in the water. The Eucharist, which is the last and the end of the other sacraments and greatest in being, is indicated in the blood. Hence Chrysostom says: “Because the heavenly sacraments take their beginning from here, see that you approach them as though about to drink from Christ’s side.”

A certain man of the Jews, a noble councilor and a rich man, came from the city of Arimathea, that is, Ramatha. He was a disciple of Jesus and had not consented to the Jews’ deeds and counsel concerning Jesus’s death, but had instead opposed them. He approached Pilate and asked that Jesus’s body be given to him so that he might take it down from the cross and bury it.

Pilate marveled that Jesus had died so quickly. He summoned the centurion who had carried out the sentence and asked whether the matter was so. Having learned that it was, he gave Joseph permission to take the body down.

Therefore Joseph came with Nicodemus, a legal expert who was a secret disciple of Jesus and who had come to him at night to be instructed concerning him. Pulling out the nails, they took him down from the cross.

Who can doubt that his mother received the body after it was taken down, in her lap and in her arms, and bathed it with most abundant tears, now gazing upon the head pierced by thorns, now the most holy hands—by whose touch the sick had been healed—pierced by nails, now the feet which had run daily to seek human salvation, and now the side opened by the lance? Mary Magdalene also watered those feet with tears, not forgetting the benefit of her Master, at whose feet she had received the remission of sins; and so did the other Marys and Jesus’s female disciples.

Luke’s statement that “his acquaintances and the women stood afar off,” and so forth, took place before he suffered upon the cross. At the beginning, Jesus’s mother and John stood beside the cross; but after his word to her, “Behold your son,” and so forth, as the crowd increased, his mother and the other acquaintances withdrew farther from the cross.

Finally, because night was approaching, Joseph and Nicodemus brought a mixture of myrrh and aloes weighing one hundred pounds to prepare Jesus’s body, as was customary for the bodies of noble persons in order to preserve them from corruption. Wrapping the body in a clean shroud—that is, linen cloths—with a face-cloth placed over his face according to Jewish custom, they laid him in Joseph’s new tomb, hewn from rock, in which no one had yet been laid. This tomb was in a certain cave in a garden beside Mount Calvary, where he had been crucified.

The fact that the other Evangelists narrate only concerning Joseph is not contrary to what John also says concerning Nicodemus. Rather, as Augustine says, John expressed what they had passed over in silence. And where the others speak of a shroud, John wrote of linen cloths.

The chief priests and Pharisees approached Pilate and said: “Lord, we have remembered that while that deceiver was still alive, he said: ‘After three days I shall rise.’ Command, therefore, that the tomb be guarded until the third day, lest perhaps his disciples come at night and steal him, and say to the people, ‘He has risen from the dead,’ and the last error shall be worse than the first.”

Pilate said to them: “You have a guard. Go and guard it as you know how.” They went away, sealed the stone with a seal, and left guards there so that no one might steal him.

After Jesus’s body, which was always united to the divinity, had been placed in the tomb, the Marys accompanied Jesus’s mother back into the city. That evening they bought precious spices and prepared a costly ointment with which afterward to anoint Jesus’s body as that of a most holy man, in order to preserve it; they did not believe that he was God. On the following Sabbath, while Christ’s body lay in the tomb, they remained quiet because of the Sabbath’s solemnity, awaiting the Lord’s day.