Annotation CXXX

”When he had entered into the temple, he began to cast out those selling and buying.” — Mark 11:15

On the history of those selling in the temple.

The author of the narration on Mark, bearing the title of Chrysostom, at the beginning of homily 13, affirms that the history of the casting-out of the sellers, described by Mark, is the same as that which we read in John. Godefridus Tilmannus annotated this passage with these words: “If you compare this very history according to Mark with John — namely, chapter 2 — it will easily become clear to you, looking a little more deeply, that there was not only one casting-out, but two. For twice the Lord is read to have gone up to Jerusalem for the celebration of the Passover: once indeed, John the Baptist not yet delivered to prison for the truth by Herod — that is, in the first year of the gospel preached by our Lord, of which John too, chapter 2, makes mention; and again, hastening to accomplish the mystery of human redemption. Of this [latter] Mark here makes mention, with whom Matthew chapter 21 also agrees. In each of these [times of] going up to Jerusalem, the Lord is read to have expelled from the inner precincts of the temple those selling and buying. But this rough and dilemmatic passage can somehow be resolved, if you say that the author speaks of the account of the time at which he went up to Jerusalem, not of how often.”