Then gathered the chief priests and the Pharisees
a council, and said, What do we? But they did not say, Let us believe. For
these abandoned men were more occupied in considering what evil they could do
to effect His ruin, than in consulting for their own preservation: and yet they
were afraid, and took counsel of a kind together. For they said, What do we?
For this man does many miracles: if we let him thus alone, all men will believe
in him; and the Romans shall come, and take away both our place and nation.
They were afraid of losing their temporal possessions, and thought not of life
eternal; and so they lost both.
For the Romans, after our Lord's passion and
entrance into glory, took from them both their place and nation, when they took
the one by storm and transported the other: and now that also pursues them,
which is said elsewhere, But the children of the kingdom shall go into outer
darkness. Matthew 8:12 But this was what they feared, that if all believed on
Christ, there would be none remaining to defend the city of God and the temple
against the Romans; just because they had a feeling that Christ's teaching was
directed against the temple itself and their own paternal laws.
And one of them, [named]
Caiaphas, being the high priest that same year, said to them, You know nothing
at all, nor consider that it is expedient for us that one man should die for
the people, and that the whole nation perish not. And this spoke he not of
himself; but being high priest that year, he prophesied. We are here taught
that the Spirit of prophecy used the agency even of wicked men to foretell what
was future; which, however, the evangelist attributes to the divine sacramental
fact that he was pontiff, which is to say, the high priest.
No comments:
Post a Comment