A
DISCOURSE[301]
ON
CHRIST’S DRIVING THE BUYERS AND SELLERS OUT OF THE TEMPLE.
I propose, in this discourse, to take into consideration a very remarkable part of the Gospel-history; in which Jesus is supposed to have exercised an act of authority on some persons, whom the Jews permitted to carry on a certain traffic within the walls of the Temple.
I shall, FIRST, recite the several accounts, which the sacred historians have given of this transaction; and shall, THEN, hazard some observations, which will, perhaps, be found to lessen, or to remove, the objections commonly made to it.
I begin with St. John’s account of it, which is delivered in these words:
Ch. ii. 13-17.
“And the Jews passover was at hand, and Jesus went up to Jerusalem, and found in the temple those that sold oxen, and sheep, and doves, and the changers of money, sitting: And when he had made a scourge of small cords, he drove them all out of the temple, and the sheep and the oxen; and poured out the changers money, and overthrew the tables; and said unto them that sold doves, Take these things hence; make not my Father’s house an house of merchandize. And his disciples remembered that it was written, The zeal of thine house hath eaten me up.”
Thus far the Evangelist, St. John: And the order of the history shews, that this was done at the first Passover which Jesus attended, after he had taken upon himself his prophetic office.
The other Evangelists relate a similar transaction, which had happened at the Passover, immediately preceding his crucifixion. Some have imagined that, on this last occasion, the same act was repeated by him, on two several days; but I see no sufficient ground for that supposition. St. Mark is easily reconciled with St. Matthew and St. Luke by only admitting, what is very usual in the sacred writers, some little neglect of method in the narration of one or other of those historians.
Mat. xxi. 12, 13.
“And Jesus went into the temple of God, and cast out all them that sold and bought in the temple, and overthrew the tables of the money-changers, and the seats of them that sold doves, and said unto them, it is written, My house shall be called the house of prayer, but ye have made it a den of thieves.”
Mark xi. 15-17.
“And they come to Jerusalem: And Jesus went into the temple, and began to cast out them that sold and bought in the temple, and overthrew the tables of the money-changers, and the seats of them that sold doves; And would not suffer that any man should carry any vessel through the temple. And he taught, saying unto them, Is it not written, My house shall be called of all nations the house of prayer? But ye have made it a den of thieves.”
Luke xix. 45, 46.
“And he went into the temple, and began to cast out them that sold therein, and them that bought, saying unto them, It is written, My house is the house of prayer: but ye have made it a den of thieves.”