Commentary on Matthew, Latin Series 145

“On the next day, which is after the Preparation, the chief priests and the Pharisees gathered before Pilate, saying: Sir, we remember that that deceiver said while he was still alive, After three days I will rise. Order, therefore, the tomb to be guarded until the third day, lest his disciples come and steal him and say to the people, He has risen from the dead; and the last error will be worse than the first. Pilate said to them: You have a guard; go, guard it as you know how. And they went and made the tomb secure, sealing the stone, with the guard.” It is reasonable to question the chief priests who came to Pilate to say what they said. Tell us, priests: when Jesus said, “Destroy this temple, and in three days I will raise it up,” with what intention did you think he said it? Of the destruction and resurrection of his body, or of the destruction and repair of the temple? If you understood that he was saying this of his resurrection, how did you, testifying against him, say, “This man said, I can destroy this temple and rebuild it in three days”? But if you truly understood it of that temple, as you also testified, how do you now know that he said he would rise from the dead after three days? See, then, how impiety attacks itself with its own words. For by these words they condemn that testimony of theirs, since they truly understood that he said those things of the resurrection of his body, and knowingly twisted his words to the destruction and repair of that lifeless temple. And I ask further: What do you say, priests? That he said to men, “After three days I will rise,” and secretly commanded his disciples to steal him away by night and to say after three days that he had risen from the dead? But this is incredible for this very reason: that after so many moral discourses which he taught among the whole people, and after so many and such great mighty works which he showed everywhere in all Judea, he should deceive his disciples with words, so that even they would blame him for giving such commands, and would therefore never do what he commanded, especially because of the danger threatening them from the people if they confessed that he who had been crucified a little before was their teacher and the Christ. And if it is incredible that he said this, see whether it does not follow that, just as he worked wonders, and just as he foretold that his Gospel would be preached in the whole world, and, “You will stand before governors and kings,” and that Jerusalem would be destroyed by an army, so too he foretold his resurrection when he said, “Destroy this temple, and I will raise it up in three days.” Therefore the priests and Pharisees spoke to their own prejudice when they said to Pilate that that deceiver had said while still alive, “After three days I will rise.” And see further that some of the guards, coming into the city, reported all that had happened, not to others, but to the chief priests themselves, so that their impiety might be shown to be inexcusable on every side. But even so these most wretched men did not yield to such great proofs as to accept that Jesus was the Christ; but even after all this they acted with malice, because of the hardness of their heart. As Pharaoh's heart had been hardened at so many and such great wonders done in Egypt, so these too were hardened, so that, having gathered with the elders and taken counsel, they gave money to greedy men to say, “His disciples … stole him by night while we were asleep.” They who read in the law, “You shall not bear false witness,” invited others too to bear false witness, spending much money so that the soldiers might bear false witness, men who for greed were exposing themselves to danger if the body had been stolen; … but they would much more readily appease the governor … with as much money as the governor could be appeased with; or else with entreaties, wishing to rescue them from danger …; and they bore false witness against themselves, saying, against military discipline, that they had then fallen into so deep a sleep that the disciples … were able to come together, and in numbers, confident that the soldiers were sleeping soundly, and so to steal the body of Jesus. And all these things were done by the adverse powers working against the teaching of Christ, who thought they could extinguish from the life of men belief in the resurrection of the Lord, and in the providence of God, and faith. And as the excessive hardness of Pharaoh was not softened when he heard of the wonders done through Moses, so, or even more, the hardness of heart of these men was not only not bent by the signs and wonders that were done, but they did not even believe the guards who had come into the city and reported all that had happened. And to Pharaoh it was said, “For this very purpose I raised you up, that I might show my power in you, and that my name might be proclaimed in all the earth”; but these men the long-suffering of God endured, so that through the vessels of wrath prepared for destruction salvation might come to the Gentiles.