John 19:31Meaning & Commentary from the Church Fathers

Meanwhile the Jews, who swallow the camel and strain out gnats (Mt 23:24), after committing so great a crime, again show special concern for the day.

Those who swallow a camel and strain out a gnat (Mt 23:24), after committing so great a crime, show special concern for the day.

For, it says, “so that the bodies should not remain on the Cross, they asked Pilate,” that is, they asked that the bodies be taken down.

Why do they ask that the legs be broken? So that, if they should still be alive, they would be incapable of action, for they were robbers.

Thus they did not wish to appear on the feast day as avengers and murderers.

Or otherwise, the Law also commanded this, that the sun should not set on a man’s wrath (Eph 4:26).

See how through the devices of the Jews the prophecies are fulfilled. Here two prophecies are fulfilled at once, as the Evangelist says further on.

The blessed Evangelist says this not to testify to reverence in people accustomed to cruel and inhuman murders, who had proved guilty of such impieties.

Rather, he shows them again doing senselessly and foolishly what Christ said: straining out “a gnat, while swallowing a camel” (Mt 23:24).

Indeed, they are shown to attach no importance at all to excessive and terrible acts of lawlessness. Yet they observe the smallest trifles with the greatest exactness, acting irrationally in both respects.

The proof is immediate. Having killed Christ, they show great honor to the Sabbath. Having insulted the Lawgiver with crimes beyond words, they assume a reverent appearance toward the Law.

The breaking of the legs did not happen in such a way that the legs were cut apart. No, it was done to cause death and make it possible to take the bodies down from the Cross.

Otherwise those hanging on the crosses would have spoiled the great feast by the terrible sight of their torments lasting through the whole day.

Let us see, according to the Evangelist’s account, what followed after the Lord Jesus, when He willed, gave up the spirit.

He did this after all had been accomplished which He knew beforehand had to take place before His death.

“The Jews therefore, because it was the Preparation, so that the bodies should not remain on the Cross on the Sabbath, for that Sabbath was a great day, asked Pilate that their legs might be broken and that they might be taken away.”

What is the reason that the Lord died before the robbers, and what do the robbers and the breaking of the legs signify?

Our Lord Jesus Christ, God by nature, assumed our flesh and truly became the only Man. He alone preserved unchanged in Himself the purpose of God, concerning which God said, “Let Us make man according to Our image and likeness” (Gen 1:26).

Like the first man, He was fashioned by divine hands. Therefore, suffering death for him, the Lord alone and first committed His soul into the hands of the Father.

And just as He was and became the Only-begotten and Firstborn among many brethren (Rom 8:29), so He consented alone and first to suffer death, the destroyer of death.

“The Jews therefore, because it was the Preparation, so that the bodies should not remain on the Cross on the Sabbath, for that Sabbath was a great day...”

Since it was Friday, if the bodies had not then been taken down from the crosses, they would have remained on the crosses also on the Sabbath.

That great Sabbath day, that is, Passover, could have found them still hanging. This seemed to be a defilement of the feast.

The Evangelist calls that Sabbath a great day not only because it was honored as every Sabbath is, but also because the Feast of Unleavened Bread then fell upon it.

Thus it was a double feast. Such a Sabbath was called a Sabbath of Sabbaths, just as one says solemnity of solemnities or feast of feasts, that is, a double feast.

Parasceue, Friday, means preparation. They called by this name the day on which one had to prepare for the Sabbath, according to the commandment concerning manna.

“On the sixth day they shall prepare what they bring in, and it shall be twice as much as they gather on the other days” (Ex 16:5).

Therefore, since human beings were created on the sixth day and the creation of the whole world was completed, and since on the seventh day the Creator had to rest from His works, this is the Sabbath, that is, rest.

It is therefore right to call the day on which our Lord was crucified the sixth day. Then the preparation of humanity was accomplished, so that it might return to its original state.

Fearing that the crucified men would not die soon, and that their bodies might remain on the crosses on the Sabbath, which the Law of Moses did not allow, the chief priests had sent earlier, before Jesus' death, to ask Pilate to hasten the death of the condemned. Although the Romans usually left the bodies of the crucified on the crosses, in exceptional cases they finished off the crucified, ending their sufferings, and gave their bodies to relatives for burial. Therefore Pilate sent soldiers to break the legs of the crucified and remove their bodies from the crosses.

The narrative of the piercing of the Lord’s side instead of the breaking of His legs is found only in the Evangelist John. It forms an important supplement to the accounts of the first three Evangelists.

“It was Friday.” “So that the bodies should not remain on the Cross on the Sabbath.” According to Roman custom, the bodies of the crucified could hang on crosses for a long time.

But the Law of Moses did not allow the bodies of those executed by hanging to remain on the tree overnight. It prescribed that they be buried that same day (Deut 21:22-23).

All the more could such bodies not be left in that way on the Sabbath, a great day among the other days of the week.

It still seemed little to human malice that so many insults and reproaches had been cast in the face of Jesus Christ. Malice still wishes to pour out its vengeance upon Him.

Yet once more the will of the heavenly Father puts to shame the efforts of malice.

“The Jews therefore, because it was Friday, so that the bodies should not remain on the Cross on the Sabbath, for that Sabbath was a great day, asked Pilate that their legs might be broken and that they might be taken away.”

The Law said: “His body shall not remain overnight on the tree, but you shall bury him in a grave that same day. For everyone hanging on a tree is cursed by God, and you shall not defile the land which the Lord your God gives you as an inheritance” (Deut 21:23).