John 11:47Meaning & Commentary from the Church Fathers

When the Pharisees heard all this, they formed a new council, saying among themselves, "What are we to do? This Man performs many signs." A great accusation! The dead are awakened, death is put to death, Lazarus rises from the dead, and the Jews are drawn toward spiritual death.

Therefore do not leave your council unfinished. Continue the accusation and say: What are we to do when, a few days later, the sun in heaven is darkened, the earth quakes, unable to endure what is being done upon it, the veil within the temple is torn, and a multitude of the dead returns to life?

Say again: What are we to do when the temple is destroyed, the service ceases, the city is burned, we are driven out, and others become heirs in our place?

What are we to do when everything passes to others: prophets, apostles, priesthood, fasting, feasts, and service, and God permits it? Think about this. Take counsel about this.

The words of your speeches are useless to you. The decree is unchangeable: "Speak a word, but it shall not stand" (Isa 8:10). Once for all God has granted to those to whom He granted it always to triumph.

He has granted them always to celebrate, and from year to year to renew the celebration, in Christ Jesus our Lord. To Him be glory unto ages of ages. Amen.

On Holy and Great Tuesday.

The beloved children of the Church are like infants at the breast. Every day they are fed from their mother's breast, and every day they do not cease to desire it.

We ourselves may be compared to a poor mother whose milk has dried up from the exhaustion of hunger. A loving mother, having no milk, may be moved by the crying of her child and give him her breast.

She does this not to feed the child, but only to calm him. As you see, we too experience the same thing and act in the same way.

Seeing this new assembly of the Church's children surrounding us and awaiting the pure milk of the word from us, we stretch out our word to them. We do this not to nourish them, for we are poor and unskilled in speech, but to quench their dust and thirst.

Come then, beloved, let us listen to the herald of the Sun, and see what wicked ambush the chief priests and Pharisees prepared for the Lord.

"The chief priests and Pharisees," he says, "gathered a council and said, What are we to do?" The Evangelist John has just told us this.

Though he does not now speak with us mouth to mouth, nevertheless in spirit he spoke into the ears of those standing here. "The chief priests and Pharisees gathered a council and said, What are we to do?"

"They gathered" is good, but "a council" is evil. They gathered not for love, but for strife. They did not call to peace, but stirred up enmity.

They gathered an assembly not to glorify God, but to dishonor Christ. They gathered a council not to establish the faith, but to reject the cornerstone.

They gathered a council not to gather the wandering sheep into the fold, but to strike the Shepherd and scatter the sheep of His pasture.

They gathered a council not to receive the snow-white pearl with faith, but to hide the radiant stone, as they supposed, in the darkness of their unbelief.

They gathered an assembly not wisely to draw out the treasure hidden in the field, but senselessly to destroy the temple of God.

They gathered a council not to gather sweet clusters of grapes, but to raise the True Vine upon the tree of the Cross. They prepared destruction for themselves, and salvation for us.

O council gathered by the devil against Christ! O deliberation filled with malice! O assembly more of bloodthirsty wolves than of God-bearing men!

Why do I say fierce wolves? They are worse than savage lions. The lions saw no sign from Daniel and received him as an ordinary man. Yet they honored him and closed their mouths before him.

But the chief priests and Pharisees had been eyewitnesses of such and so many signs. They were therefore driven by still greater envy toward murder and said, "What are we to do?"

O reasonings inspired by malice! O groaning and cry born of envy! O lamentation and wailing over an evil plot! Not even Rachel, weeping for her children, groaned so.

"What are we to do?" They ought to have rejoiced over the afflicted. They ought to have established a public feast because the dead are raised, life triumphs, death is destroyed, the devil is put to shame, the army of demons is scattered, mankind is set free, and the resurrection of the dead is proclaimed to all.

But, on the contrary, such blessings do not gladden them, but grieve them. They take counsel to kill the Cause of all these blessings.

And what do they say? "What are we to do?" Let us turn in repentance, fall down before Him, and believe. This is the one thing they could have said.

Indeed, what else could they have said but this? "What are we to do," after transgressing the commandment of God and not keeping the law of God given to us?

It says, "The Lord your God will raise up for you a prophet from among you, from your brethren, like me. Him you shall hear" (Deut 18:15), in all that he commands you.

But they did not mean repentance when they said, "What are we to do?" No, they meant something altogether different. "What are we to do? How shall we kill this Righteous One?"

Your mind has been darkened, O Israel. Did you not hear the commandment, "Do not put to death the innocent and righteous" (Dan 13:53)? Or was the blood of the prophets already shed not enough for you?

Even to the present day it cries to God, awaiting recompense from Him. But to surpass all that has been done, you prepare to shed holy and innocent blood, and you say, "What are we to do?"

O mad thought and senseless counsel! The four-days-dead man was brought to life among them. The bonds of sins were torn apart, and they plot treachery against Him.

They ought to have said something altogether different: "What are we to do? We have insulted the Holy One. We did not believe the Son of God.

"What are we to do? He healed the wounds of lepers by a single word, and we did not believe in Him.

"What are we to do? He opened the eyes of those born blind, and even this did not persuade us.

"What are we to do? We knew that with five loaves He fed five thousand in the wilderness, and we did not believe in Him.

"What are we to do? By His word He set the paralytic on his feet, the man lying on his bed, held by illness for thirty-eight years of his life, and we did not believe in Him.

"What are we to do? We saw Him walking upon the sea as on dry land. We knew that with one motion of His hand He calmed the terrible swellings and blasts of untamed winds, and still we remained in our unbelief."

But they uttered these words, "What are we to do?" not with a disposition toward repentance, but while seeking a way to commit the evil deed.

The earth without labor produced their dead as living, like ripe ears of grain, and they groaned. Did you Jews not reap what you sowed? Was anyone among you burdened by receiving the Lord?

In what respect were you burdened when you were punished? What injustice did you suffer from God? Why do you remove the dead from life, troubled by envy?

Why do you strive to destroy the inexhaustible streams of the sweet spring, from which those who drink would thirst no more? Why do you kill your sick by gathering to destroy their Physician?

The cause of all this, however, was most wicked envy. O envy, mother of murder, invention of the devil, cause of death!

O envy, you do not allow those whom you attack to live, and you punish still more those whom you possess. O envy, companion of the devil!

O envy, enemy of friendship, opponent of peace, rival of love, offspring of the devil, flower of the gloomy abyss! Whoever is possessed by you comes to the murder of Christ.

From the beginning you wounded Adam in paradise. You handed over the one who had tasted sweet delights to most bitter death. For death was not in the world until you, envy, brought it forth.

This is also witnessed by the divine word, which says, "God did not create death, and He does not delight in the destruction of the living." "But through the envy of the devil death entered the world" (Wis 1:13; 2:24).

You deprived Cain of the white garment of brotherly love and armed him with the knife of treachery. You taught him murder and at once made the wretched man shake and tremble.

You dwelt in Pharaoh and destroyed the newborn children of the Hebrews by untimely death. O envy, even when you are shown kindness, you rise up still more against your benefactors.

So Saul, while benefiting from David's service, was stirred up by you and armed himself still more for murder. At your prompting, the sons of Jacob sent beautiful Joseph into dizzying Egypt and sold him, though free, as a slave.

Even his dreams did not frighten them. Yet the divine vision showed that he was a type of Christ. Eleven stars bowed before him in the vision, eleven because the betrayer Judas hanged himself, having served envy.

But let us escape envy, the ancestress of death. Having risen, we shall glorify God, worshiped in the Trinity. To Him belong dominion, honor, glory, and majesty, now and ever, and unto ages of ages. Amen.

The danger they now depicted from the Romans was one they themselves had created and magnified in their imagination. The Lord never led the people disposed toward Him into an uprising in His defense. He never nourished in anyone hopes for such a kingdom as could be dangerous to Roman dominion.

They will also take from the Jewish people even the small political independence it had so far enjoyed under Roman rule. Then the high priest Caiaphas said: “Why so much discussion? It is better, of course, that one man should die for the people than that the whole nation should perish in the event of an uprising. Therefore, whoever this Jesus may be, He must be put to death as soon as possible.” These words came from a malicious heart. But the thought expressed in them, that Jesus should die for the people, was true. Thus the impious lips of Caiaphas, because he was high priest that year, involuntarily uttered a prophecy. For in antiquity the high priest was an organ of divine revelation (Ex 28:30; Num 27:21). For by the decree of God, Jesus Christ truly had to die for the salvation of mankind. “And not for the nation only,” the Evangelist observes, “but also to gather into one the children of God who were scattered abroad.” That is, Christ had to die not only for the salvation of the Jewish people. He died in order to make one universal Church of Christ from all people throughout the whole world (cf. 10:16). After this judgment of Caiaphas, the Sanhedrin made the final decision to kill Jesus.

The Pharisees, in fact, would have found the Prophet of Nazareth useful, if only He had agreed to appear as the national and political Messiah. That was the only kind of Messiah they imagined. They also would have accepted Him if He had not exposed their inner hypocrisy and false piety with such severity. But the Sadducean party owed all its prosperity to the people’s present humiliated condition. Through the Roman appointees, the Herods, it held the high priesthood in its hands, which was a great source of enrichment for them. It feared every popular disturbance and was ready to resort to every possible measure. Its aim was to remove any occasion for Roman suspicion and displeasure.

And this is true. They acknowledge the reality of the miracles of Jesus Christ. Face to face with one another, in the secret council of the Sanhedrin, they do not explain these miracles suspiciously, as they had done before the people. They had explained them as the action of an unclean power, or denied the reality of the miracles themselves. Now, among themselves, they acknowledge the reality of these miracles and believe them.

They did not need such a One as Christ Jesus, who preached self-denial, turned hearts not to earth but to heaven, and exposed the vices of the people’s leaders. “If we let Him alone,” they say, “the Romans will come and take away both our place and our nation.” Base hypocrites attribute their own unclean thoughts and desires to Jesus. They say that Jesus wants to be an earthly king, and that His followers are ready to rebel against Roman authority. Therefore they received the very thing they expected. Thirty years later the Romans truly took and destroyed the city, and scattered the people throughout the whole world. This happened precisely because, after slandering heavenly innocence and putting Him to death, they rebelled against Roman authority. “But one of them, Caiaphas, being high priest that year, said: You know nothing at all, nor do you consider that it is better for us that one man should die, and not that the whole nation should perish.” “High priest that year” means that Caiaphas was presiding that year, as in verse 51. But this does not exclude the thought that he had also been high priest before that. Caiaphas held power throughout the whole proconsulship of Pilate. After Pilate’s removal, he was deposed by the proconsul Vitellius (Winer, Realworterbuch, 2nd ed., 1, 759). “You know nothing at all”: you understand nothing; you are darkened men. The words are sharp and reveal a troubled soul. Who, then, troubled Caiaphas? Since this was now a full assembly of the Sanhedrin, there were certainly such members as Nicodemus (Jn 3:2; 7:50; 9:16), Joseph of Arimathea, and others like them. The resurrection of Lazarus strengthened the respect of such members for Jesus, verse 45. They did not fail to say a few words on behalf of Jesus in the Sanhedrin. These very words drove Caiaphas out of himself. In a movement of anger, he pronounced the sentence that Jesus must die, lest the whole nation perish.

We have more than once spoken above about the meaning of the words "chief priests and Pharisees." They represent two parties constantly hostile to each other. Yet they unite in common malice and strive toward one goal: to destroy Him who exposes and abolishes them by preaching goodness and righteousness, and by speaking the words of God.

By the name "chief priests" in the plural, one should understand not the high priest alone, but his whole family and all his relatives. In a broader sense, it means the whole Sadducean party.

That the name "chief priests" means the whole clan of the high priest who occupied that position is clear from Acts 4. There it concerns the assembly that wished to judge Peter and John: "Annas the high priest, Caiaphas, John, Alexander, and all who were of the high-priestly family."

But we know that Annas was no longer actually high priest. He only played an influential role in his party, being the father-in-law of Caiaphas (cf. Jn 18:13). Apparently the whole party called Sadducees in the other Gospels was related by kinship.

It was a group of families educated chiefly in Alexandrian philosophical views. They attached themselves closely to the rulers of Judea because they lacked fanaticism and were inclined to receive the Greco-Roman worldview and civilization.

Therefore both the Idumeans and the Romans always chose high priests from this group of families. These families gave them convenient instruments for governing the land.

The Pharisees, because of their intolerance and the narrowness of their views, were hated by the rulers of Judea. Yet in the Sanhedrin they played an important role. They were an extraordinarily influential element because they held the people in their hands.

This people was always unrestrained and cruel, and submitted only to the yoke laid upon it by the Pharisees and scribes. Moreover, in the assembly, or Sanhedrin, the Pharisees probably had an overwhelming majority. Therefore the Sadducees could not fail to reckon with this power.

But in the Sanhedrin, on the question of the Lord Jesus, we see no disagreement. Both parties realized that danger threatened them both. In the words of the Psalmist, "The rulers were gathered together against the Lord and against His Christ" (Ps 2:2).

The deliberations taking place in the Sanhedrin are highly remarkable. We said above that all these Sadducees and Pharisees show no moral feeling. They cannot deny the signs and miracles, but either they do not understand the presence of God, or they directly decide to wage war against God, as their fathers did in the wilderness.

Both parties indifferently point only to political considerations, as though they did not even suspect the hand of God governing the world. When they say that the Romans will come and take away their place and nation, they evidently mean that the Lord Jesus will certainly be proclaimed king of Judea by the people, and that He will not refuse the throne.

They remain silent about the fact that this election would horrify them already because there would be no place for them under the King of righteousness. Instead, they put forward that, if this happened, the Romans would use it to take final possession of the country and enslave it.

Until then, the Romans had granted the Jews a shadow of self-government. The pretext would be that the Jews entrusted with authority could not manage the people and had lost all influence over them.

Apart from the fact that such an opinion could be expressed only by those wholly unbelieving in the providence of God, we note that they consciously spoke a lie. They understood very well that He who openly declared, "My kingdom is not of this world" (Jn 18; cf. Jn 6:15), and said, "Who appointed Me a judge or divider over you?" (Lk 12:14), would not accept a human kingdom.

Even Pilate understood that the chief priests and scribes "handed the Lord over out of envy" (Mt 27:18; cf. Lk 23:14-16; Jn 19:12). But the time of the prince of this world and the power of darkness was coming (Jn 14:30; Lk 22:53).