Annotation XCVIII

”This is the heir.” — Matthew 21:38

Whether the Jews recognized the deity of Christ.

Strabo, in the [ordinary] Gloss, expounds the present clause thus: “It is plain from these words of the Jews that the princes crucified the Son of God not through ignorance, but through envy. For they understood him to be that [one] to whom the Father says through the prophet, ‘Ask of me, and I will give thee the nations for thine inheritance.’” St. Thomas, in the third part of the Summa, question 47, article 5, notes this passage — adduced under the name of Jerome — as repugnant to the Apostle, saying to the Corinthians, “If they had known, they would never have crucified the Lord of glory.” Then, removing a repugnance of this kind, he writes thus: “It must be said that those words, ‘This is the heir,’ are said not in the person of the whole people of the Jews, but in the person of the tenant-farmers of the vineyard — by whom are signified the rulers of that people, who knew him to be the heir, inasmuch as they knew him to be the Christ promised in the Law. But against this response it seems [to stand] that those words of the psalm, ‘Ask of me, and I will give thee the nations for thine inheritance,’ are said to the same [one] to whom it is said, ‘Thou art my Son; this day have I begotten thee.’¹ If, therefore, they knew him to be the [one] to whom it was said, ‘Ask of me, and I will give thee the nations for thine inheritance,’ it follows that they knew him to be the Son of God.” Chrysostom too, in the same place, says that they knew him to be the Son of God. Bede also, on that [text] of Luke 23, “For they know not what they do,” says: “It is to be noted that he does not pray for those who preferred to crucify [him] whom they had understood to be the Son of God, rather than to confess [him].” But to this it can be answered that they knew him to be the Son of God not by nature, but by the excellence of [his] singular grace. We can, however, say that they are also said to have known [him to be] the true Son of God, because they had evident signs of this thing — to which, nevertheless, they were unwilling to assent, on account of hatred and envy, so as [not] to acknowledge him to be the Son of God.