John 11:46

But some of them went their ways, &c. S. Augustine doubts whether they did this with good or evil intention; whether to announce to them that they might believe, or to betray Him that they might use severity, as says the Gloss. For they might do this with a good intention, namely, in order that the Pharisees, if they could not bring themselves to believe in Christ, should at least have a milder disposition towards Him, as Origen is of opinion. But all others think that they did it with an evil intention. Theophilus and Leontius add that they intended to accuse Christ as being sacrilegious, and even so far as that He had dug up the body of a dead person. Great then was their malice and malignity, with which they repaid Christ for so great a benefit, [inflicting on Him] so great an outrage for a miracle blasphemy, for life death; since they denounced Him to the Pharisees to be condemned to the cross.

Ver. 47. Then gathered the chief priests and the Pharisees a council, &c.

What do we? (What does it behove us to do? Syriac, What shall we do?)

For this man doeth many miracles. It behoved them to be convinced by so many signs and miracles of Jesus, and to believe Him to be Messiah, the Son of God; but blinded by hate and envy, they say and do the contrary, and studiously avoid condescending even to name Him, but say, This man, as if He were a common and worthless person ("They still call Him man," says Chrysostom, "who had received so great a proof of His Godhead"), and consult concerning His murder, and propose to bereave of life Him who had restored life to Lazarus, and from whom they ought to seek and hope for life eternal. They did not say "Let us believe," says S. Augustine, "but, lost men as they were, thought more of how they might injure Him, and destroy Him, than of how they might consult for their own safety, that they perish not. Their foolish heart was darkened, so that they forced on the destruction, present and lasting, of themselves and their whole nation." "What foolishness and blindness," says Origen, "that they should think themselves able to effect anything against Him whom they testify to have done many miracles, as if He were not able to deliver Himself out of their snares!" Ver. 48. If we let Him thus alone, &c. i.e., the Romans will destroy Judea and the whole Jewish race. S. Chrysostom and Theophylact by place understand Jerusalem, the metropolis of Judea, and thence the whole realm. But Maldonatus understands the Temple; for the chief priests feared that this with its victims and temporal gains should be taken from them by the Romans.

All will believe on Him. See here the genius of envy, and an effect worthy of it: the chief priests wishing to obscure the glory of Christ, display it the more, in saying that all men will believe on Him.

And the Romans shall come and take away our place and nation. Some are of opinion that they thought this, viz., If all believe on Jesus, all will depart from us, our Judaism, synagogue, and state, to Him; and so there will be none to contend for us against the Roman attempts to subjugate us.

But others more probably, If all believe Jesus to be the King and Messiah of the Jews, they will irritate against us the Romans, the lords of Judea, because we have made for ourselves a new King and Messiah, and fallen away from Tiberius Cæsar to Him; wherefore armed men will come and take away, that is, capture, ravage, and destroy Jerusalem and Judea and the entire Jewish race and nation. So Chrysostom. "They wished," he says, "to excite the people, so as to bring Him under the risk of being suspected to be a pretender to royalty; i.e., if the Romans shall see Jesus heading throngs of people, they will suspect a pretender, and destroy the state. But what armed men and horsemen did Christ ever take about with Him? Only envy and hate blinded them, so that they plainly erred, and reasoned wrongly."