13:24–33
CHAPTER 13
Ver 31.The same day there came certain of the Pharisees, saying, Herod will kill Thee, as he slew John Thy forerunner. Christ seems not to have preached in Galilee at this time, as He had previously left it (Matt. xix.), but in Peræa in Judæa, for Herod ruled over Peræa as well as Galilee. So thinks F. Lucas. Maldonatus and others, however, suppose that these things were done in Galilee, that S. Luke may now insert by recapitulation what had been done there previously, as we find in
ver. 24 and Luk_9:51.
Moreover the Pharisees, by this falsehood, pretended that Herod was hostile to Christ; that they might banish Him from among them, or at least that they might test His freedom and conscience and depress Him by implanting in his mind the fear of Herod, and might thus drive Him out of their country. "Lest," says Euthymius, "by His presence and miracles He might gain fame and attract a multitude." And perhaps, when going from Peræa to Judæa, He might fall into the hands of the chief Priests, whom they knew to be contriving His death, as is plain from S. Joh_7:20. Joh_7:25. Herod, indeed, was not opposed to Christ, for he desired to see Him and His miracles, as in chap. ix. 9; nay, he would not condemn Christ when Christ was sent to him by Pilate, but sent Him back to Pilate clad in a white (alba, Vulg., λάμπζος, Greek) robe, as if He were worthy of ridicule and not death, chap. xxiii. So Jansenius, Maldonatus, F. Lucas and others.
Ver.32.And He said to them. Christ answered the Pharisees freely and loftily when they brought up the fear of Herod. He said that He feared neither Herod, nor the Pharisees, nor the rulers, but He would continue to preach, though against the will of them all, until the day appointed by the Father for His death. He called Herod "a fox," because he was cunning, crafty, (versipellis) and false, for he killed John the Baptist by fraud and falsehood. Such are heretics the type of whom was Herod, for they seek to kill those who believe, in Christ.
But Christ here rather addresses the Pharisees, and calls them all foxes because they would have instilled a false fear of Herod into His mind, that in flying from Judæa He might be taken by the rulers and put to death. Titus says that "He appears, as some think, to direct the whole force of His words against Herod alone, but He turns them against the wickedness of the Pharisees rather than Herod, for He did not say 'that fox,' but 'this fox.'" In fact, to show that the Pharisees resembled foxes by their pretended fraud, He carefully used a middle term, and, as S. Theophylact says, "with intention," for by saying "fox" in the singular He, made them think that He meant Herod, but by the addition of the demonstrative pronoun "this," He signified that they themselves were the crafty ones.
Thus Emmanuel Sà: "The word 'that' may apply either to Herod or to him who invented the falsehood that Herod wished to kill Christ; and who must have been one of the Pharisees, the enemies of Christ. The meaning then is, You Pharisees, like crafty and deceitful foxes, would fill Me with the fear of Herod, that I may no longer preach among you; but I forewarn you that I fear neither you nor Herod, nor will I, for any reason, cease to preach; for I am sure that my Father will not suffer Me to be taken and put to death before the day appointed by Him shall have arrived."
Behold, I cast out devilsI proceed to perform my work against the will not only of Herod but of youto-day and to-morrow, that is, for some time yet, and the third day, that is, in a short time, when I shall have finished my ministry and preaching, I shall be perfected, i.e. "I shall receive my consummation in a glorious death on the cross, undergone by me willingly and courageously for the salvation of men," as the Apostle says, Hebrews xi.
Observe the Hebraism by which an indefinite time is put for a definite, as in Hosea vi. 2. So S. Cyril and Theophylact. Euthymius says, "To-day; and therefore to-morrow; that is, for some time yet, though a short one, that is about three months," for Christ appears to have said this a little before the Feast of Dedication, which is kept upon the 25th of the month Casleu, which answers to part of our November and December, and He was crucified in the following March.
Christ therefore boldly said this to the Pharisees to show, 1. That He feared not death but sought it. 2. To show His Divine Power, by which He would live among men, and teach them, even against their will, as long as the Father and Himself pleased and determined. 3. To increase the vexation of the perverse Pharisees, for they already wished for His destruction.
Christ also calls His death "a consummation," because in it and by it He consummated the whole œconomy of His Incarnation, and the whole work of the mission on which He was sent by the Father, that is, the expiation of all sins, the redemption of the human race, the salvation of the elect; as in Heb_10:14.
Ver. 33.Nevertheless I must walk. "Must," says S. Bonaventure, "not from compulsion but from Divine decree." So S. Cyril, and Titus. Christ repeats this (which He had said in the preceding verse) to show that He was constant in fearing neither Herod nor the Pharisees, and in His determination to preach, against their will, for a short time still, to the day appointed by the Father. The meaning is: "To-day and to-morrow, and the third day following I must walk in the towns and villages, and preach, and on that third day following, that is soon after, be perfected by death on the cross, as I have already said. I now add that on the third day I shall do the same, for although I shall be perfected on this day, yet on this day also I must walk. All the time of my life, even to my death, I must walk in this country, and preach, and work cures, and cast out devils, because I have consecrated my whole life to holy actions, and my death to generous suffering; for I have offered myself to God as a holocaust." ln Hebrew "to walk" is taken for "to work;" S. Joh_8:12., Joh_23:35; Psa_1:1, and elsewhere. The Syriac has, "I must walk to-day and to-morrow, and on the third day I shall make my journey," i.e. I shall set out to Jerusalem to my death, and thence to Heaven from which I came.
Morally, the faithful, and especially the apostolic man, may learn to labour strenuously in the Lord's vineyard even to death and martyrdom, like SS. Peter, Paul, Chrysostom, Athanasius and others. So our own Father Canisius, though worn out by many and great labours, yet ceased not from them until his seventy-seventh year, when he was released at once from them and from his life.
These were his words. "To the soldiers of Christ," their term of service (stipendia) is not finished till the end of their lives. When they have ended then they begin: death alone gives them their discharge. There is one abode for those who have merited it, heaven. So our own Sacchinus in Bk. iii. of his life: "Let us labour therefore even to death, that after death we may rest for ever in a blessed felicity; for earth is the course (stadium) of a little labour, heaven is the seat of eternal repose."
For it cannot be that a prophet should perish out of Jerusalem. In the Greek ου̉κ ὲνδέχεται; that is, it is not fitting, it does not happen. "It cannot be done" is read by the Syriac. It is a hyperbole. It means, "Such is the wickedness and barbarity of Jerusalem, that it seems proper to her that the prophets should be killed by herself, nay, she will not suffer this to be done by any other, but takes it amiss if it be. I do not fear Herod therefore, whom you cast up to Me, because I shall not be put to death by him now in Galilee, but some months hence in Jerusalem, the murderess of the prophets, where, not by Herod, but by yourselves, 0 Pharisees, I shall be crucified and slain." "For they were accustomed," says S. Theophylact, "to pour out the blood of the servants, even as they poured out that of the Lord Himself." So Titus, Jansenius, Maldonatus, and F. Lucas. The last named says: "It cannot be that a prophet should be slain outside Jerusalem, he must be slain within it; not because none were slain outside, for Jezebel slew many in Samaria, 1Ki_8:13, 1Ki_12:10, but as it was most usual for their slaughter to take place within the walls. For the kings had their abode there, and the rulers, the nobles, the scribes, the wise men, and the Pharisees, holy in their own eyes, who, like the people, would not endure the rebukes and admonitions of the prophets; so that the city was changed from the house of God, into the slaughter-house of the prophets, and professed to be, as it were, their place of torture. We read,
2Ki_21:16, "Manasseh shed innocent blood very much, till he had filled Jerusalem from one end to another."
In like manner at Rome, in various places, and especially at the Ursus Pileatus, where is now the Church of S. Bibiana, a great number of Christians were slain by the unbelieving Emperors: so that the place obtained the vulgar name of "The Shambles of the Martyrs." Thus it might then have been said with truth, "It is not possible that a Pope should be killed out of Rome, for almost all the Popes, from S. Peter to Silvester, for 300 years, were put to death by the Emperors at Rome for the faith of Christ."
Paul's word for the conflict is a grappling word: our wrestling is not against flesh and blood (v. 12), a hand-to-hand contest — and he then spends six verses issuing heavy infantry equipment for it. The other oddity is where he puts the enemy. The Douay's spirits of wickedness in the high places renders, as Witham notes, a phrase that is literally "in celestials"; Jerome takes it as wicked spirits in the air. Challoner's gloss keeps the paradox from collapsing: the high places here are "the air, the lowest of the celestial regions," the basement of heaven rather than its heights. The adversaries are above us and beneath God, which is exactly the position that makes them dangerous and not formidable.
Witham identifies the principalities and powers as apostate angels who "before their fall were in such ranks of spirits," now permitted to rule over the wicked. Estius sharpens that into a genuine account of how the permission works: by nature and from their creation they governed this corporeal world, were stripped of that governance for their pride, and then received it back — "though limited by certain restrictions" — for the specific purpose of tempting man. Their authority is therefore not a remnant they held onto but an office reissued to them under conditions, and the conditions are God's. Menochius reads the world of this darkness materially, of devils working in "our inferior and dark atmosphere, by raising winds, storms, tempests," and then adds the moral sense that matters more: by darkness may be understood the wicked, "in whom Satan reigns as in a citadel." Estius closes the point with Prudentius, who has Belial presiding over the damp air thick with sluggish mists — quorum dominatibus humidus iste et pigris densus nebulis obtemperat aer — but the citadel is the harder image, because a citadel is held from inside.
Witham's glosses on the armour keep it from becoming decoration. The loins girt with truth means truth "both as to doctrine and a good life, keeping your baptismal promises"; the breastplate of justice covers "not only the particular virtue of justice, but all virtues in general"; the feet shod means simply being ready to march. Two modern habits fail this test from opposite sides. One treats every evil as flesh and blood — an opponent, a party, a demographic — and so fights the war Paul says we are not in. The other is content with the shield alone, faith as bare assent, when Witham specifies "a lively faith working by charity" as the only kind that extinguishes anything. The passage ends with the man giving the orders describing himself as an ambassador in a chain (v. 20), and asking not to be let out but to be given the words.