---
title: "Catena Aurea: The Four Gospels"
author: "Thomas Aquinas"
translator: "John Henry Newman (ed.)"
languages: [en]
shelf: "Commentaries"
section: 147 of 394
url: https://scriptura.si/works/thomas-aquinas-catena-aurea-the-four-gospels/147/
cite: "Thomas Aquinas, tr. John Henry Newman (ed.), Catena Aurea: The Four Gospels, section 147. Scriptura (scriptura.si), https://scriptura.si/works/thomas-aquinas-catena-aurea-the-four-gospels/147/"
---

# Catena Aurea: The Four Gospels

*Thomas Aquinas, tr. John Henry Newman (ed.)*

The four Gospels read through chains of quotations from the Church Fathers.

## 147. Matthew 27 · 4 of 6

Source: https://scriptura.si/works/thomas-aquinas-catena-aurea-the-four-gospels/147/ · cite a paragraph as https://scriptura.si/works/thomas-aquinas-catena-aurea-the-four-gospels/147/#p-N

[¶0] Ver. 39. And they that passed by reviled him, wagging their beads,40. And saying, "Thou that destroyest the temple, and buildest it in three days, save thyself. If thou be the Son of God, come down from the cross."41. Likewise also the Chief Priests mocking him, with the Scribes and elders, said,42. "He saved others; himself he cannot save. If he be the King of Israel, let him now come down from the cross, and we will believe him.43. He trusted in God; let him deliver him now, if he will have him: for he said, I am the Son of God.44. The thieves also, which were crucified with him, cast the same in his teeth.

[¶1] Chrysostom: Having stripped and crucified Christ, they go yet further, and seeing Him on the cross revile Him.

[¶2] Jerome: "They revile him" because they passed by that way, and would not walk in the true way of the Scriptures. "They wagged their heads," because they had just before shifted their feet, and stood not upon a rock. The foolish rabble cast the same taunt against Him that the false witnesses had invented, "Aha! thou that destroyest the temple of God and rebuildest it in three days."

[¶3] Remigius: "Aha!" is an interjection of taunt and mockery.

[¶4] Hilary: What forgiveness then for them, when by the resurrection of His body they shall see the temple of God rebuilt within three days?

[¶5] Chrysostom: And as beginning to extenuate His former miracles, they add, "Save thyself; if thou be the Son of God, come down from the cross."

[¶6] Chrys., Hom. de Cruc. et Latr. ii: He, on the contrary, does not come down from the cross, because He is the Son of God; for He therefore came that He might be crucified for us.

[¶7] Jerome: Even the Scribes and Pharisees reluctantly confess that "He saved others." Your own judgment then condemns you, for in that He saved others, He could if He would have saved Himself.

[¶8] Pseudo-Chrysostom: [Source note: ed. note, d: Hom. de Cruce et Latr. in the Latin Chrys. (ed. Paris. 1588.) vol. iii. p. 750]

[¶9] But attend to this speech of these children of the Devil, how they imitate their father’s speech. The Devil said, "If thou be the Son of God, cast thyself down;" [[Mat 4:6]] and they say now, "If thou be the Son of God, come down from the cross."

[¶10] Leo, Serm. 55, 2: From what source of error, O Jews, have ye sucked in the poison of such blasphemies? What teacher delivered it to you? What learning moved you to think that the true King of Israel, that the veritable Son of God, would be He who would not suffer Himself to be crucified, and would set free His body from the fastenings of the nails? Not the bidden meaning of the Law, not the mouths of the Prophets. Had ye indeed ever read, "I hid not my face from the shame of spitting;" [[Isa 50:6]] or that again, :They pierced my hands and my feet, they told all my bones." [[Psa 22:16]] Where have ye ever read that the Lord came down from the cross? But ye have read, "The Lord hath reigned from the tree." [Source note: ed. note, e: Ps. 96, 10. ’Dominus regnavit a ligno,’ in the old Italic Version; and so Tertullian adv. Marc. iii. The Vulg. follows the Heb.]

[¶11] Rabanus: Had He then been prevailed on by their taunts to leave the cross, He would not have proved to us the power of endurance; but He waited enduring their mockery; and He who would not come down from the cross, rose again from the tomb.

[¶12] Jerome: But unworthy of credit is that promise, "And we will believe him." For which is greater, to come down while yet alive from the cross, or to rise from the tomb when dead? Yet this He did, and ye believed not; therefore neither would ye have believed if He had come down from the cross. It seems to me that this was a suggestion of the daemons. For immediately when the Lord was crucified they felt the power of the cross, and perceived that their strength was broken, and therefore contrive this to move Him to come down from the cross. But the Lord, aware of the designs of His foes, remains on the cross that He may destroy the Devil.

[¶13] Chrysostom: "He trusted in God, let him now deliver him, if he will." O most foul! Were they therefore not Prophets or righteous men, because God did not deliver them out of their perils? But if He would not oppose their glory, which accrued to them out of the perils which you brought upon them, much more in this man ought you not to be offended because of what He suffers; what He has ever said ought to remove any such suspicion.

[¶14] When they add, "Because he said, I am the Son of God," they desire to intimate that He suffered as an impostor and seducer, and as making high and false pretences. And not only the Jews and the soldiers from below, but from above likewise. "The thieves, which were crucified with him, cast the same in his teeth."

[¶15] Aug., de Cons. Ev., iii, 16: It may seem that Luke contradicts this, when be describes one of the robbers as reviling Him, and as therefore rebuked by the other. But we may suppose that Matthew, shortly alluding to the circumstance, has used the plural for the singular, as in the Epistle to the Hebrews we have, "Have stopped the mouths of lions," [[Heb 11:33]] when Daniel only is spoken of. And what more common way of speaking than for one to say, See the country people insult me, when it is one only who has done so. If indeed Matthew had said that both the thieves had reviled the Lord, there would be some discrepancy; but when he says merely, "The thieves," without adding ’both,’ we must consider it as that common form of speech in which the singular is signified by the plural.

[¶16] Jerome: Or it may be said that at first both reviled Him; but when the sun had withdrawn, the earth was shaken, the rocks were rent, and the darkness increased, one believed on Jesus, and repaired his former denial by a subsequent confession.

[¶17] Chrysostom: At first both reviled Him, but afterwards not so. For that you should not suppose that the thing was arranged by any collusion, and that the thief was not a thief, he shews you by his wanton reproaches, that even after He was crucified he was a thief and a foe, but was afterwards totally changed.

[¶18] Hilary: That both the thieves cast in His teeth the manner of His Passion, shews that the cross should be an offence to all mankind, even to the faithful.

[¶19] Jerome: Or, in the two thieves both nations, Jews and Gentiles, at first blasphemed the Lord; afterwards the latter terrified by the multitude of signs did penitence, and thus rebukes the Jews, who blaspheme to this day.

[¶20] Origen: The thief who was saved may be a sign of those who after many sins have believed on Christ.

[¶21] Ver. 45. Now from the sixth hour there was darkness over all the land unto the ninth hour.46. And about the ninth hour Jesus cried with a loud voice, saying, "Eli, Eli, lama sabachthani?" that is to say, My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me?47. Some of them that stood there, when they heard that, said, "This man calleth for Elias."48. And straightway one of them ran, and took a spunge, and filled it with vinegar, and put it on a reed, and gave him to drink.49. The rest said, "Let be, let us see whether Elias will come to save him."50. Jesus, when he had cried again with a loud voice, yielded up the ghost.

[¶22] Pseudo-Chrysostom:, in Hom. de Cruce et Latr.: Creation could not bear the outrage offered to the Creator; whence the sun withdrew his beams, that he might not look upon the crime of these impious men.

[¶23] Origen: Some take occasion from this text to cavil against the truth of the Gospel. For indeed from the beginning eclipses of the sun have happened in their proper seasons; but such an eclipse as would be brought about by the ordinary course of the seasons could only be at such time as the sun and moon come together, when the moon passing beneath intercepts the sun’s rays. But at the time of Christ’s passion it is clear that this was not the case, because it was the paschal feast, which it was customary to celebrate when the moon was full.

[¶24] Some believers, desiring to produce some answer to this objection, have said, that this eclipse in accordance with the other prodigies was an exception to the established laws of nature.

[¶25] Dionys. ad Polycarp. Ep. 7: When we were together at Heliopolis, we both observed such an interference of the moon with the sun quite unexpectedly, for it was not the season of their conjunction; and then from the ninth hour until evening, beyond the power of nature, continuing in a direct line between us and the sun. And this obscuration we saw begin from the east, and so pass to the extreme of the sun’s orb, and again return back the same way, being thus the very reverse of an ordinary eclipse.

[¶26] Chrys., Hom. lxxxviii: This darkness lasted three hours, whereas an eclipse is transient, and not enduring, as they know who have studied the matter.

[¶27] Origen: Against this the children of this world urge, How is it that of the Greeks and Barbarians, who have made observations of these things, not one has recorded so remarkable a phenomenon as this? Phlegon indeed has recorded such an event as happening in the time of Tiberius Caesar, but he has not mentioned that it was at the full moon. I think therefore that, like the other miracles which took place at the Passion, the rending of the veil, and the earthquake, this also was confined to Jerusalem.

[¶28] Or, if any one chooses, it may be extended to the whole of Judaea; as in the book of Kings, Abdias said to Elias, "As the Lord thy God liveth, there is no nation or kingdom whither my lord hath not sent to seek thee," [[1Ki 18:18]] meaning that be had been sought in the countries round about Judaea. Accordingly we might suppose many and dense clouds to have been brought together over Jerusalem and Judaea, enough to produce thick darkness from the sixth to the ninth hour. For we understand that there were two creatures created on the sixth day, the beasts before the sixth hour, man on the sixth; and therefore it was fitting that He who died for the salvation of man should be crucified at the sixth hour, and for this cause that darkness should be over the whole earth from the sixth to the ninth hour. And as by Moses stretching out his hands towards heaven darkness was brought upon the Egyptians who held the servants of God in bondage, so likewise when at the sixth hour Christ stretched out his hands on the cross to heaven, darkness came over all the people who had cried out, "Crucify him," and they were deprived of all light as a sign of the darkness that should come, and that should envelop the whole people of the Jews. Further, under Moses there was darkness over the land of Egypt three days, but all the children of Israel had light; so under Christ there was darkness over all Judaea for three hours, because for their sins they were deprived of the light of God the Father, the splendour of Christ, and the illumination of the Holy Spirit.

[¶29] But over the rest of the earth there is light, which every where illumines the Church of God in Christ. And if to the ninth hour there was darkness over Judaea, it is manifest that light returned to them again after that; "so, when the fulness of the Gentiles shall have entered in, then all Israel shall be saved." [[Rom 11:25]]

[¶30] Chrysostom: Or otherwise; The wonder was in this, that the darkness was over the whole earth, which had never come to pass before, save only in Egypt what time the Passover was celebrated; for the things done then were a type of these. And consider the time when this is done; at mid-day, while over the whole world it was day, that all the dwellers on the earth might perceive it. This is the sign He promised to them that asked Him, "An evil and adulterous generation seeketh a sign, and there shall no sign be given it save the sign of Jonas the Prophet," [[Mat 12:39]] alluding to His cross and resurrection. And it was a much greater marvel that this should come to pass when He was fastened to the cross, than when He was walking at large on the earth.

[¶31] Surely here was enough to convert them, not by the greatness of the miracle alone, but because it was done not till after all these instances of their frenzy, when their passion was past, when they had uttered all that they would, and were satiated with taunts and gibes. But how did they not all marvel and conclude Him to be God? Because the human race was at that time plunged in exceeding sluggishness and vice, and this wonder was but one, and quickly past away, and none cared to search out its cause, or perhaps they attributed it to eclipse, or some other physical consequence.

[¶32] And on this account He shortly afterwards lifts up His voice to shew that He yet lives, and Himself wrought this miracle; "And about the ninth hour Jesus cried with a loud voice," etc.

[¶33] Jerome: He employed the beginning of the twenty-first Psalm. [[Psa 22:1], Vulgate] That clause in the middle of the verse, "Look upon me," is superfluous; for the Hebrew has only ’Eli, Eli, lama sabachthani,’ that is, "My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me?" It is impiety therefore to think that this Psalm was spoken in the character of David or Esther or Mardocheus, when passages taken out of it by the Evangelist are understood of the Saviour; as, "They parted my garments among them," and, "They pierced my hands."

[¶34] Chrysostom: He uttered this word of prophecy, that He might bear witness to the very last hour to the Old Testament, and that they might see that He honours the Father, and is not against God. And therefore too, He used the Hebrew tongue, that what He said might be intelligible to them.

[¶35] Origen: But it must be asked, What means this, that Christ is forsaken of God? Some, unable to explain how Christ could be forsaken of God, say that this was spoken out of humility. But you will be able clearly to comprehend His meaning if you make a comparison of the glory which He had with the Father with the shame which He despised when He endured the cross.

[¶36] Hilary, de Trin. x. 50 etc.: From these words heretical spirits contend either that God the Word was entirely absorbed into the soul at the time it discharged the function of a soul in quickening the body; or that Christ could not have been born man, because the Divine Word dwelt in Him after the manner of a prophetical spirit. As though Jesus Christ was a man of ordinary soul and body, having His beginning then when He began to be man, and thus now deserted upon the withdrawal of the protection of God’s word cries out, "My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me?"

[¶37] Or at least that the nature of the Word being transmuted into soul, Christ, who had depended in all things upon His Father’s support, now deserted and left to death, mourns over this desertion, and pleads with Him departing. But amidst these impious and feeble opinions, the faith of the Church imbued with Apostolic teaching does not sever Christ that He should be considered as Son of God and not as Son of Man. The complaint of His being deserted is the weakness of the dying man; the promise of Paradise is the kingdom of the living God. You have Him complaining that He is left to death, and thus He is Man; you have Him as He is dying declaring that He reigns in Paradise; and thus He is God. Wonder not then at the humility of these words, when you know the form of a servant, and see the offence of the cross.

[¶38] Gloss., non occ.: God is said to have forsaken Him in death because He exposed Him to the power of His persecutors; He withdrew His protection, but did not break the union.

[¶39] Origen: When He saw darkness over the whole land of Judaea He said this, Father, "why hast thou forsaken me?" meaning, Why hast thou given Me over exhausted to such sufferings? that the people who were honoured by Thee may receive the things that they have dared against Me, and should be deprived of the light of Thy countenance. Also, Thou hast forsaken Me for the salvation of the Gentiles. But what good have they of the Gentiles who have believed done, that I should deliver them from the evil one by shedding My precious blood on the ground for them? Or will they, for whom I suffer these things, ever do aught worthy of them? Or foreseeing the sins of those for whom He suffered, He said, "Why hast thou forsaken me?" that I should become "as one that gathereth stubble in the harvest, and gleanings in the vintage." [[Mic 9:1]]

[¶40] But you must not imagine that the Saviour said this after the manner of men by reason of the misery which encompassed Him on the cross; for if you take it so you will not hear His "loud voice" and mighty words which point to something great hidden.

[¶41] Rabanus: Or, The Saviour said this as bearing about with Him our feelings, who when placed in dangers think ourselves forsaken by God. Human nature was forsaken by God because of its sins, and the Son of God becoming our Advocate laments the misery of those whose guilt He took upon Him; [Source note: ed. note: "These words He uttered as representing the person of men. For He was never forsaken by His Divine nature; but we were the forsaken, and the overlooked; whence He said this in as representing us." Damasc. Fid Orth. iii 24. and so Theophylact.] therein shewing how they who sin ought to mourn, when He who never sinned did thus mourn.Jerome: It follows, "Some of them that stood by," etc.; "some," not all; whom I suppose to have been Roman soldiers, ignorant of Hebrew, but from the words "Eli, Eli," thought that He called upon Elias. But if we prefer to suppose them Jews, they do it after their usual manner, that they may accuse the Lord of weakness in thus invoking Elias.

[¶42] Pseudo-Chrysostom:, Hom. vi in Pass. (vol iii, p. 733): Thus the Source of living water is made to drink vinegar, the Giver of honey is fed with gall; Forgiveness is scourged, Acquittance is condemned, Majesty is mocked, Virtue ridiculed, the Bestower of showers is repaid with spitting.

[¶43] Hilary: Vinegar is wine, which has turned sour either from neglect, or the fault of the vessel. Wine is the honour of immortality, or virtue. When this then had been turned sour in Adam, He took and drunk it at the hands of the Gentiles. It is offered to Him on a reed and a spunge; that is, He took from the bodies of the Gentiles immortality spoiled and corrupted, and transfused in Himself into a mixture of immortality that in us which was spoiled.

[¶44] Remigius: Or otherwise; The Jews as degenerating from the wine of the Patriarchs and Prophets were vinegar; they had deceitful hearts, like to the winding holes and hollows in spunge. By the reed, Sacred Scripture is denoted, which was fulfilled in this action; for as we call that which the tongue utters, the Hebrew tongue, or the Greek tongue, for example; so the writing, or letters which the seed produces, we may call a reed.