John 2:20

The Jews then said, &c. There were three buildings of the Temple of Jerusalem. The first was by Solomon, and occupied seven years. The second was the rebuilding after its destruction by the Babylonians, by Zorobabel and his companions, under Cyrus, King of Persia. This rebuilding occupied fifteen years only, though many ancient and modern writers have erroneously supposed it to have occupied forty-six years, and to have been here referred to by the Jews. The third was the rebuilding of the Temple by Herod of Ascalon, who murdered the innocents of Bethlehem. He built the Temple afresh for the Jews, in order that he might secure the kingdom for himself and his posterity, and that he might be accounted by them as the true Messiah. And it is exceedingly probable that the Jews were here referring to this rebuilding from their use of the pronoun this. For "this" points out an existing Temple. And inasmuch as the two former Temples were destroyed, they could not be thus pointed out. Herod began his erection of the third Temple in the eighteenth year of his reign. For it was at that time he made known his intention of rebuilding the Temple, as Josephus testifies (Ant., lib. 15,.. 14). Wherefore, since Christ was born in the thirty-fifth year of the reign of Herod, as I have shown on Luke 2:1, it follows that from his beginning to build until the birth of Christ, sixteen years had elapsed. Add thirty years of the life of Christ and you have forty-six. For it was in His thirtieth year, in which also He was baptized, that Christ had this disputation with the Jews.

You may say that Josephus, in the passage cited above, says that Herod completed the building of the Temple in eight years instead of forty-six. I answer that he finished building as far as the most important parts of the Temple, such as the holy place and the Holy of Holies, were concerned: but both he himself and his successors laboured for many years after, even to Christ's thirtieth year, in adorning the same. For in constructing the courts, the porticoes, and in beautifying the whole, inside as well as out, eighteen thou- sand men laboured all that time, as the same Josephus records (Ant. 20, 8).

Finally, some think that the Jews spoke of both Temples, viz., Zorobabel's and Herod's. For Herod did not so much build a new Temple as adorn the old Temple of Zorobabel, so as to make it loftier and grander. This Vilalpandus clearly proves from Hegesippus and other authors. The Temple then of Zorobabel occupied fifteen years in building. It was afterwards for several more years enlarged and adorned by the Maccabees, by Simon the son of Onias the High Priest (Ecclus. 1. i), and by Herod. If you reckon up all these years you will easily make them come to forty-six years. Similarly the Basilica of S. Peter at Rome, the ancient one of Constantine the Great having been destroyed, has occupied a hundred years in building, and even at the present time we see continually in process of erection turrets, altars, pillars, chapels, &c.

Symbolically, the forty-six years of the building of the Temple signify that the Body of Christ was built up in as many days. Hear S. Augustine (de Trin., lib. 14, c. 5 .) : "This number answers to the perfection of the Body of Christ; for forty-six times six make two hundred and seventy-six, that is, nine months and six days; for in so long time was the Body of Christ coming to perfection." The same (in Joan, tract. 10) says, "Christ received a body from Adam. Now the Greek for the east is α̉νατολὴ, for the west δύσις, for the north άζκτος, for the south μεσημβζία, which four letters form Adam's name, even the elect who are to he gathered from the four winds when the Lord shall come to judgment. The letters also of Adam's name count for forty-six, according to the Greek numeration; for alpha signifies one, delta four, alpha one, and mu forty, in all forty-six. Thus Bede, S. Cyprian, Clement of Alexandria, and others.