389 He gives his reason for this when he says, stop making my Father’s house into a marketplace. “Take away your evil from my sight” (Is 1:10). Note that Matthew (2 1:13) says: “Do not make my house a den of thieves,” while here he says, a marketplace. Now the Lord does this because, as a good physician, he begins first with the gentler things; later on, he would propose harsher things. Now the action recorded here was the first of the two; hence in the beginning he does not call them thieves but merchants. But because they did not stop such business out of obstinacy, the Lord, when driving them out the second time (as mentioned in Mark 11:15), rebukes them more severely, calling robbery what he had first called business.
He says, my Father’s house, to exclude the error of Manicheus, who said that while the God of the New Testament was the Father of Christ, the God of the Old Testament was not. But if this were true, then since the temple was the house of the Old Testament, Christ would not have referred to the temple as my Father’s house.
390 Why were the Jews not disturbed here when he called God his Father, for as is said below (5:18), this is why they persecuted him? I answer that God is the Father of certain men through adoption; for example, he is the Father of the just in this way. This was not a new idea for the Jews: “You will call me Father, and you will not cease to walk after me” (Jer 3:19). However, by nature he is the Father of Christ alone: “The Lord said to me: ‘You are my Son’ “ (Ps 2:7), i.e., the true and natural Son. It is this that was unheard of among the Jews. And so the Jews persecuted him because he called himself the true Son of God: “the Jews tried all the harder to kill him, because he not only broke the Sabbath rest, but even called God his own Father, making himself equal to God” (below 5:18). But when he called God his Father on this occasion, they said it was by adoption.
391 That the house of God shall not be made a marketplace is taken from-Zechariah (14:21): “On that day there will no longer be any merchants in the house of the Lord of hosts”; and from the Psalm (70:16), where one version has the reading: “Because I was not part of the marketplace, I will enter into the strength of the Lord.”
392 Then when he says, His disciples then remembered, he sets down a prophecy which was written in Psalm 69 (v 9): “Zeal for your house consumes me.” Here we should remark that zeal, properly speaking, signifies an intensity of love, whereby the one who loves intensely does not tolerate anything which is repugnant to his love. So it is that men who love their wives intensely and cannot endure their being in the company of other men, as this conflicts with their own love, are called “zelotypes.” Thus, properly speaking, one is said to have zeal for God who cannot patiently endure anything contrary to the honor of God, whoin he loves above all else: “I have been very zealous for the Lord God of hosts” (1 Kgs 19:10). Now we should love the house of the Lord, according to the Psalm (25:8): “O Lord, I have loved the beauty of your house.” Indeed, we should love it so much that our zeal consumes us, so that if we notice anything amiss being done, we should try to eliminate it, no matter how dear to us are those who are doing it; nor should we fear any evils that we might have to endure as a result. So the Gloss says: “Good zeal is a fervor of spirit, by which, scorning the fear of death, one is on fire for the defense of the truth. He is consumed by it who takes steps to correct any perversity he sees; and if he cannot, he tolerates it with sadness.”
LECTURE 3
18 At this the Jews responded and said, “What sign can you show us authorizing you to do these things?” 19 Jesus replied, “Destroy this temple, and in three days I will raise it up again.” 20 The Jews then retorted, “This temple took forty-six years to build, and you are going to raise it up again in three days!” 21 He was speaking, however, of the temple of his body. 22 When, therefore, he had risen from the dead, his disciples recalled that he had said this; they then believed the Scriptures and the statement Jesus had made. 23 While he was in Jerusalem during the Passover feast, many people, seeing the signs he was working, believed in his name. 24 But Jesus did not trust himself to them, for he knew all men, 25 and he did not need anyone to give him testimony about men. He was well aware of what was in man’s heart.
393 Having set forth the occasion for showing the sign, the Evangelist then states the sign which would be given. First, he gives the sign. Secondly, he mentions the fruit of the signs Christ performed (v 23). As to the first he does three things. First, the request for the sign is given. Secondly, the sign itself (v 19). Thirdly, the way the sign was understood (v 20).
394 The Jews ask for a sign; and this is what he says: What sign can you show us authorizing you to do these things?
395 Here we should note that when Jesus drove the merchants Out of the temple, two things could be considered in Christ: his rectitude and zeal, which pertain to virtue; and his power or authority. It was not appropriate to require a sign from Christ concerning the virtue and zeal with which he did the above action, since everyone may lawfully act according to virtue. But he could be required to give a sign concerning his authority for driving them out of the temple, since it is not lawful for anyone to do this unless he has the authority.
And so the Jews, not questioning his zeal and virtue, ask for a sign of his authority; and so they say, What sign can you show us authorizing you to do these things? i.e., Why do you drive us out with such power and authority, for this does not seem to be your office? They say the same thing in Matthew (21:23): “By what authority are you doing these things?”
396 The reason they ask for a sign is that it was the usual thing for Jews to require a sign, seeing that they were called to the law by signs: “There did not arise again in Israel a prophet like Moses, whom, the Lord knew face to face, with all his signs and wonders,” as is said in Deuteronomy (34:10), and “The Jews require signs,” as we find in 1 Corinthians (1:22). Hence David complains for the Jews saying: “We have not seen our signs” (Ps 73:9). However, they asked him for a sign not in order to believe, but in the hope that he would not be able to provide the sign, and then they could obstruct and restrain him. And so, because they asked in an evil manner, he did not give them an evident sign, but a sign clothed in a symbol, a sign concerning the resurrection.
397 Hence he says, Jesus replied, and he gives the sign for which they asked. He gives them the sign of his future resurrection because this shows most strikingly the power of his divinity. For it is not within the power of mere man to raise himself from the dead. Christ alone, who was free among the dead, did this by the power of his divinity. tie shows them a similar sign in Matthew (12:30): “An evil and adulterous generation asks for a sign. And a sign will not be given it, except the sign of Jonah the prophet.” And although he gave a hidden and symbolic sign on both occasions, the first was stated more clearly, and the second more obscurely.
398 We should note that before the incarnation, God gave a sign of the incarnation to come: “The Lord himself will give you a sign. A virgin will conceive, and give birth to a son” (Is 7:14). And in like manner, before the resurrection he gave a sign of the resurrection to come. And he did this because it is especially by these two events that the power of the divinity in Christ is evidenced. For nothing more marvelous could be done than that God become man and that Christ’s humanity should become a partaker of divine immortality after his resurrection: “Christ, rising froni the dead, will not die again... his life is life with God” (Roin 6:9), i.e., in a likeness to God.
399 We should note the words Christ used in giving this sign. For Christ calls his body a temple, because a temple is something in which God dwells, according to “The Lord is in his holy temple” (Ps 10:5). And so a holy soul, in which God dwells, is also called a temple of God: “The temple of God is holy, and that is what you are” (1 Cor 3:17). Therefore, because the divinity dwells in the body of Christ, the body of Christ is the temple of God, not only according to the soul but also according to the body: “In him all the fulness of the divinity dwells bodily” (Col 2:9). God dwells in us by grace, i.e., according to an act of the intellect and will, neither of which is an act of the body, but of the soul alone. But he dwells in Christ according to a union in the person; and this union includes not only the soul, but the body as well. And so the very body of Christ is God’s temple.
400 But Nestorius, using this text in support of his error, claims that the Word of God was joined to human nature only by an indwelling, from which it follows that the person of God is distinct from that of man in Christ. Therefore it is important to insist that God’s indwelling in Christ refers to the nature, since in Christ human nature is distinct from the divine, and not to the persom, which in the case of Christ is the same for both God and man, that is, the person of the Word, as was said above.
401 Therefore, granting this, the Lord does two things with respect to this sign. First, he foretells his future death. Secondly, his resurrection.
402 Christ foretells his own death when he says, Destroy this temple. For Christ died and was killed by others: “And they will kill him” (Mt 17:22), yet with him willing it: because as is said: “He was offered because it was his own will” (Is 53:7). And so he says, Destroy this temple, i.e., my body. He does not say, “it will be destroyed,” lest you suppose he killed himself. He says, Destroy, which is not a command but a prediction and a permission. A prediction, so that the sense is, Destroy this temple, i.e., you will destroy. And a permission, so that the sense is, Destroy this temple, i.e., do with my body what you will, I submit it to you. As he said to Judas: “What you are going to do, do quickly” (below 13:27), not as commanding him, but as abandoning himself to his decision.
He says Destroy, because the death of Christ is the dissolution of his body, but in a way different from that of other men. For the bodies of other men are destroyed by death even to the point of the body’s returning to dust and ashes. But Such a dissolution did not take place in Christ, for is it is said: “You will not allow your Holy One to see corruption” (Ps 15:10). Nevertheless, death did bring a dissolution to Christ, because his soul was separated from his body as a form from matter, and because his blood was separated from his body, and because his body was pierced with nails and a lance.
403 He foretells his resurrection when he says, and in three days I will raise it up again, that is, his body; i.e., I will raise it from the dead. He does not say, “I will be raised up,” or “The Father will raise it up,” but I will raise it up, to show that he would rise from the dead by his own power. Yet we do not deny that the Father raised him from the dead, because as it is said: “Who raised Jesus from the dead” (Rom 8:11); and “O Lord, have pity on me, and raise me up” (Ps 40:10). And so God the Father raised Christ from the dead, and Christ arose by his own power: “I have slept and have taken my rest, and I have risen, because the Lord has taken me” (Ps 3:6). There is no contradiction in this, because the power of both is the same; hence “whatever the Father does, the Son does likewise” (below 5:19). For if the Father raised him up, so too did the Son: “Although he was crucified through weakness, he lives through the power of God” (2 Cor 13:4).
404 He says, and in three days, and not “after three days,” because he did not remain in the tomb for three complete days; but, as Augustine says, he is employing synecdoche, in which a part is taken for the whole.
Origen, however, assigns a mystical reason for this expression, and says: The true body of Christ is the temple of God, and this body symbolizes the mystical body, i.e., the Church: “You are the body of Christ” (1 Cor 12:27). And as the divinity dwells in the body of Christ through the grace of union, so too he dwells in the Church through the grace of adoption. Although that body may seem to be destroyed mystically by the adversities of persecutions with which it is afflicted, nevertheless it is raised up in “three days,” namely, in the “day” of the law of nature, the “day” of the written law, and the “day” of the law of grace; because in those days a part of that body was destroyed, while another still lived. And so he says, in three days, because the spiritual resurrection of this body is accomplished in three days. But after those three days we will be perfectly risen, not only as to the first resurrection, but also as to the second: “Happy are they who share in the second [sic] resurrection” (Rv 20:6).
405 Then when he says, The Jews then retorted, we have the interpretation of the sign he gave. First, the false interpretation of the Jews. Secondly, its true understanding by the apostles (v 21).
406 The interpretation of the Jews was false, because they believed that Christ was saying this of the material temple in which he then was; consequently, they answer according to this interpretation and say: This temple took forty-six years to build, i.e., this material temple in which we are standing, and you are going to raise it up again in three days!
407 There is a literal objection against this. For the temple in Jerusalem was built by Solomon, and it is recorded in 2 Chronicles (6:1) that it was completed by Solomon in seven years. How then can it be said that this temple took forty-six years to build? I answer that according to some this is not to be understood of the very first temple, which was completed by Solomon in seven years: for that temple built by Solomon was destroyed by Nebuchadnezzar. But it is to be understood of the temple rebuilt under Zerubbabel, after they returned from captivity, as recorded in the book of Ezra (5:2). However, this rebuilding was so hindered and delayed by the frequent attacks of their enemies on all sides, that the temple was not finished until forty-six years had passed.