| 2. Absque synagogis facient vos: sed venit hora, ut omnis qui interficit vos, arbitretur obsequium se praestare Deo: | 2. They will put you out of the synagogues: yea, the hour cometh, that whosoever killeth you, will think that he doth a service to God. |
2. They will put you out of the synagogues (or rather, synagogue) i.e. excommunicate you. Compare [ix. 22]; [xii. 42]. Yea, He continues, the time is approaching when persecution will be so violent that your countrymen will think that they do a service to God by putting you to death. The mention of the synagogue proves that the reference is to Jewish persecutions. No doubt many of the Jews thought, like St. Paul (Acts xxvi. 9; 1 Tim. i. 13), that they were pleasing God by persecuting Christians. Their ignorance, however, while it extenuated, did not wholly excuse, their sin, for it was culpable. They ought to have known from Christ's words and works, and from the fulfilment of prophecy in Him, that He was the Messias, to whom, therefore, they were bound to hearken (Deut. xviii. 19), and whose religion was to perfect and supplant their own.
| 3. Et haec facient vobis, quia non noverunt Patrem neque me. | 3. And these things will they do to you, because they have not known the Father, nor me. |
3. See above on [xv. 21].
| 4. Sed haec locutus sum vobis: ut, cum venerit hora eorum, reminiscamini quia ego dixi vobis. | 4. But these things I have told you, that when the hour shall come, you may remember that I told you of them. |
4. “Eorum” of the Vulgate is to be connected with “reminiscamini,” on which it depends. The comma ought to be before “eorum;” the Greek text makes this clear. As we said above on verse 1, the fact that Christ had foretold these persecutions, would be another proof of His Divinity. Moreover, since He knew that these persecutions were in store, and did not avert them, the Apostles [pg 279] ought to learn from this to bear them with resignation, inasmuch as they were not merely endured for Him, but permitted by Him.
| 5. Haec autem vobis ab initio non dixi, quia vobiscum eram. Et nunc vado ad eum, qui misit me: et nemo ex vobis interrogat me, Quo vadis? | 5. But I told you not these things from the beginning, because I was with you. And now I go to him that sent me, and none of you asketh me: Whither goest thou? |
5. But I told you not these things from the beginning. “These things,” we again understand, as in verse 1, both of the persecutions which were before them, and of the coming of the Holy Ghost to take Christ's place, and console the Apostles.
But had He not already predicted that the Apostles were to be persecuted? Had He not said: “But beware of men. For they will deliver you up in councils, and they will scourge you in their synagogues. And you shall be brought before governors and before kings for My sake, for a testimony to them and to the Gentiles”? (Matt. x. 17, 18). To this we may reply, with Mald., that He had never predicted persecution until now, and that St. Matthew, in recording, in the passage cited, the prediction of persecution, does not follow the order of time, but inserts, in connection with the mission of the Apostles to the Jews what was spoken long after, probably immediately before, Christ's ascension, when they were receiving their mission to the whole world. (Matt. xxviii. 19, 20). Or we may reply—and this answer we prefer—that although He had before predicted the persecution of the Apostles, yet He had not till now told them what He told them on this occasion; namely, that they should be excommunicated by the Jews, and that men would think they were actually honouring God in persecuting them. So that although He had before predicted persecution, still it was only now He predicted its terrible violence.
And (Gr. δε = but) now I go to him that sent me. These words are to be connected closely with the preceding. Before, He had not told them these things, but now He is about to leave them, and there is, therefore, a special reason for His referring to the future.