John 2:13Meaning & Commentary from the Church Fathers

On verses 13-16. What follows next? "The Passover of the Jews was near, and He went up to Jerusalem" (Jn 2:13). The Gospel then narrates another event, as though it had come to the narrator's remembrance.

"And He found in the temple those who sold oxen, sheep, and doves, and the money changers sitting. And making a whip of cords, He drove them all out of the temple, with the sheep and the oxen."

"He poured out the coins of the money changers and overturned their tables. And He said to those who sold doves: Take these things away from here, and do not make My Father's house a house of trade" (Jn 2:16).

What have we heard, brothers? See, that temple too was a figure. The Lord drove from it all who sought their own when they came on a market day. And what were they selling there?

They sold what was then necessary for men for sacrifices. For you know, beloved, that because of that people's sensual condition and still stony heart, such sacrifices were given them to keep, lest they fall away to idols.

They offered oxen, sheep, and doves there in sacrifice. You know this, since you have read it. It was not a great sin if they sold in the temple what was bought for offering in the temple.

Yet He drove them out. Why did the Lord act thus, as though He had found drunkards there? They were merchants selling what was permitted and not contrary to justice.

It is not unlawful to sell what it is fitting to buy. Why, then, did He drive them out and not tolerate the house of prayer becoming a house of trade?

If the house of God must not be turned into a house of trade, should it become a drinking house? When we say this, they gnash their teeth at us. Augustine here has the Donatists in mind.

Yet the psalm encourages us, in which we hear: "They gnashed their teeth at me" (Ps 34:16). We know how we may be healed, even if the whips for Christ are doubled, for His word is scourged.

"They gathered scourges against Me and did not know it" (cf. Ps 34:15). He was scourged with the whips of the Jews. Now He is scourged by the blasphemies of false Christians.

They multiply whips for their Lord and do not know it. Let us then, as far as He helps us, do what the psalmist says: "As for me, when they troubled me, I put on sackcloth and humbled my soul with fasting" (cf. Ps 34:13).

Yet we say, brothers, that a certain sign was given to us when He made a whip of cords and scourged the disobedient, who had made a place of trade from the temple of God.

For He Himself does not avoid them. He, who was to be scourged by them, first scourged them.

Indeed, each man twists a cord for himself from his own sins. The prophet says: "Woe to those who draw their sins as with a long cord" (cf. Is 5:18).

Who makes a long cord? The one who increases sin by sin. How are sins added to sins? When sins already committed are covered by other sins.

A man committed theft. So that what he did might not be discovered, he seeks an astrologer. It was enough to commit theft in order to become a sinner. Why do you wish to add a new sin to sin?

And now there are two sins. When you were warned not to go to an astrologer, you began to blaspheme the bishop. Now there are three sins.

When you heard, "Remove him from the Church," you say, "I will find refuge in the party of Donatus." Now you have added a fourth sin.

The cord grows. Fear the cord. It will be good for you to be corrected here, while you endure scourging, lest at the end it be said to you: "Bind his feet and hands, and cast him into the outer darkness" (cf. Mt 22:13).

For "everyone is bound by the cords of his own sins" (cf. Prov 5:22). The first saying was uttered by the Lord, and the second is spoken by other Scriptures. Yet both are spoken by the Lord.

By their own sins men entangle themselves and cast themselves into the outer darkness.

But in order that we may seek out the mystery of what happened in this figure, let us answer: who are those who sell oxen? Who are those who sell sheep and doves?

They are those who seek their own in the Church, and not the things of Jesus Christ (cf. Phil 2:21). They regard everything as merchandise, not wishing to be redeemed. They do not want to be redeemed, and they want to sell.

For it would be good for them to be redeemed by the blood of Christ, that they might reach the peace of Christ.

For what profit is there in gaining everything temporal and passing in this world, whether money, pleasures for the belly and throat, or honor from human praise? Is all this not smoke and wind?

Will all this not vanish and flee away? Woe to those who cling to what passes away, for they themselves vanish together with these things. Is all this not a river rushing swiftly into the sea?

Woe to him who falls into it, for he will be carried away into the sea. Therefore we must restrain all our senses from impulses of this kind.

My brothers, those who seek such things are sellers. Simon himself wanted to buy the Holy Spirit because he wanted to sell the Holy Spirit (cf. Acts 8:18-19).

He thought that the apostles were merchants like those whom the Lord drove from the temple with a whip. For he himself was such a man and wanted to buy what he could sell.

He belonged to those who sell doves. For truly, in a dove the Holy Spirit manifested Himself (see Mt 3:16).

Who, then, are those who sell doves, brothers? Who are they, if not those who say, "We give the Holy Spirit"? Why do they say this, and for what price do they sell?

For the price of their own honor. They receive as their price temporary sees, so that they may seem to be selling doves. Let them beware of the whip of cords.

The dove is not merchandise. It is given as a good, gratis, and therefore it is called grace, gratia.

So then, my brothers, you can see such merchants and shopkeepers, each praising what he trades in. How many shops they have built! Augustine alludes to the episcopal sees of the Donatists, which he lists next.

Primian holds one in Carthage. Maximian holds another. Rogatus holds a third in Mauretania. Others, whom we can no longer name individually, hold another here and another there in Numidia.

Primian was a Donatist bishop of Carthage from 391 or 392, holding radical views. Maximian was a Donatist deacon of Carthage who entered into conflict with Primian after the death of Bishop Parmenian.

He gathered supporters around himself and formed the Maximianist party, which opposed the Primianists. In 394 Maximian was excommunicated from the Donatist community, after which his party gradually disappeared.

Rogatus was the Donatist bishop of Cartenna, modern Tenes in Algeria, and a supporter of Donatist rigorism.

And so someone goes about in order to buy the dove, and each of them praises the shop in which he trades. Let the heart of this seeker turn away from every merchant. Let him come where the dove is obtained freely.

And they do not blush, brothers, because through their sorrowful and destructive divisions they have divided themselves into so many parties.

They attribute to themselves what does not belong to them. They are puffed up, thinking themselves to be something when they are nothing (cf. Gal 6:3).

What was fulfilled in them, when they refused to be corrected, except what you heard in the psalm? "They were torn apart and felt no repentance" (cf. Ps 34:16).

Who, then, are those who sell oxen? By oxen we should understand those who handed down to us the Holy Scriptures. The apostles were oxen, and the prophets were oxen.

Thus the Apostle says: "You shall not muzzle an ox while it treads out the grain." Is it for oxen that God is concerned? Or is it said altogether for our sake?

Yes, for our sake it was written. For he who plows should plow in hope, and he who threshes should thresh in hope of receiving what is expected (1 Cor 9:9-10).

Those oxen left us the record of the Scriptures. For they did not hand down their own things in them, but sought the glory of the Lord. For what did you hear in that psalm?

"And let those who desire peace for His servant say continually: Let the Lord be magnified" (cf. Ps 34:27). The servant of God, the people of God, the Church of God.

Let those who desire peace for His Church magnify the Lord, not the servant. Let them say continually: "Let the Lord be magnified." Who should say this? "Those who desire peace for His servant."

This is clearly the voice of His people, the voice of His servant, which you hear weeping in the psalm. You were moved when you heard it, because you belong to that people.

What was sung by one resounded in every heart. Blessed are those who saw themselves in those voices as in a mirror.

Who, then, are those who desire peace for His servant, peace for His people, peace for the one soul which He calls His only one and wishes to deliver from the lion?

Augustine speaks of delivering the soul from the lion, without fully quoting Ps 21:21-22, and so a certain discrepancy arises. The full verses read: "Deliver my soul from the sword, and my only one from the dogs. Save me from the mouth of the lion, and from the horns of the unicorns."

"Snatch my only one from the paws of the dogs" (cf. Ps 21:21). These are the ones who say continually: "Let the Lord be magnified."

Therefore those oxen magnified the Lord, not themselves. Behold the ox magnifying his Lord, for "the ox knows his owner" (Is 1:3).

Behold the ox fearing lest the Owner of the ox be abandoned, and lest hope be placed in the ox. Thus the Apostle is afraid of those who want to place their hope in him.

"Was Paul crucified for you? Or were you baptized in the name of Paul?" (1 Cor 1:13). "What I gave, I did not give. You received freely, gratis. The dove came down from heaven."

The Apostle says: "I planted, Apollos watered, but God gave the increase. So neither he who plants nor he who waters is anything, but God who gives the increase" (1 Cor 3:6-7).

And let those who desire peace for His servant say continually: "Let the Lord be magnified."

These heretics deceive men by means of the Scriptures themselves, in order to receive honor and glory from them and to keep men from turning to the truth.

Since they deceive men by means of the Scriptures, from whom they seek honor, they sell oxen to them. They also sell sheep, that is, lambs, meaning precisely the simple people, plebes.

And to whom do they sell them, if not to the devil? My brothers, if the Church of Christ is one and only one, then who carries off everything torn away from her, if not the prowling and roaring lion seeking whom he may devour (cf. 1 Pet 5:8)?

Woe to those who are torn away from the Church. For she herself remains unharmed. "The Lord knows His own" (cf. 2 Tim 2:19).

Yet they, as far as they can, sell oxen and sheep. They also sell doves. Let them beware of the whip made from their own sins.

Clearly, when they suffer something of this kind for their injustices, let them know that God has made a whip of cords. He urges those apostates to change themselves, so that they may no longer be merchants.

For if they do not change themselves, they will hear at the end: "Bind their feet and hands, and cast them into the outer darkness" (Mt 22:13).

Since He intended to heal on the Sabbath and to do many things that seemed to the Jews a violation of the Law, He now destroys such a suspicion beforehand. He does this so that they may not think He acts as an adversary of God.

He showed such zeal for the house of God, manifested such power and indignation on its behalf, and spared absolutely no one. He even exposed Himself to danger.

He stirred up against Himself the sellers and the Jews who had permitted this business. He Himself was ready to endure everything for the sake of good order in the temple.

Such a One could not be an adversary of the Master of this temple.

It did so in the temple through the priests, in the synagogues through the rabbis, and in the Sanhedrin through its spiritual and secular officials, whose head was usually the high priest.

Jerusalem seemed only to be awaiting the King and Messiah. He would not only restore its lost rights, but give it new and more splendid ones, making it the capital of the world.

The feast of Passover was approaching. Every pious Jew considered it his duty to spend it in Jerusalem. Jesus also went to Jerusalem.

He went as a simple Galilean, with His countrymen, of whom not many yet knew Him, since He had openly done and taught nothing. He went also with disciples, from whom He could not outwardly be distinguished.

Yet in His soul He bore the great intention of beginning the transformation of the Church, for which He had come to earth.

This time He wished by the power of His authority to cut short certain too-obvious disorders. They were being committed with impunity, even under the patronage of the spiritual estate, in the people's most sacred place, the temple.

It is true that He never intended to restore merely pure Judaism. The spirit of the religion He brought with Him was so new and powerful that the old wineskins could by no means contain it.

Therefore He could have left the Jerusalem temple untouched, without any improvements or transformations, until the hand of a Gentile burned it and destroyed it to the foundations.

For the temple was a place arranged specifically according to the needs and requirements of the Jewish religion.

Yet, on the other hand, it had no small importance among the objects of His attention. He had long before called it His Father's house.

This meant that the God Who had been worshiped here until now is also the God of that religion which He came to give the human race.

Thus the temple was not entirely foreign to Him. On the contrary, in its institutions it spoke much both of Him and of Himself.

At His coming, it had to speak with all its stones that the glory promised to it had arrived.

Not to pay attention to it would have meant leaving the whole Jewish religion in neglect. It would have meant forgetting one of the principal features of the Messiah's character as the people conceived Him.

The temple had to seem all the more important to Jesus because, for simple souls, it served as a nursery of holy feelings. For those who did not know the true God, it served to awaken purer conceptions of religion.

This was already enough for Jesus, at His entrance into His ministry, to turn His first gaze upon the Jerusalem temple.

This can be seen from the Evangelist's description of Jesus' actions toward the money changers and the sellers of doves. He scattered the coins of the former and overturned their tables.

To the latter, whose merchandise was in baskets, He addressed only the word of command: "Take these things away," and so forth.

The merchants could not but obey the command of Jesus Christ, already because holy truth was on His side. They realized that by their conduct they were truly defiling the sanctuary of the temple, though with the permission of its authorities.

Besides, one may think that the merchants regarded Jesus Christ as a prophet. He had been firmly testified to by John the Baptist as the Messiah, and in Galilee He had already glorified Himself as such through a miracle.

Most of all, however, what mattered here was the divine authority of Jesus Christ's gaze, word, and action. This produced an irresistible impression on those whom He addressed with His command.

He came there no longer because every adult Jew was obliged to appear in the temple at the feast of Passover. He came in order to do the will of Him Who sent Him, and to continue the messianic ministry begun by Him in Galilee.

No fewer than two million Jews came to Jerusalem from various countries for the feast of Passover. All of them were obliged to offer sacrifices to God in the temple.

No one was to appear before the face of the Lord empty-handed (Deut 16:16). There also the Paschal lambs had to be slaughtered, that is, killed (Deut 16:5-6).

According to the testimony of Josephus, in the year 63 after the birth of Christ, on the day of the Jewish Passover, 256,500 Paschal lambs were slaughtered in the temple by the priests.

Besides this, during the days of Passover a multitude of small livestock and birds was killed for sacrifices.

The temple itself was surrounded by a high wall, and the space between the temple and the walls was divided into courts. The largest of these was the Court of the Gentiles.

The Jews found this court very suitable for commercial purposes and turned it into a market square. They drove into it herds of Paschal and sacrificial livestock and brought many birds.

They set up stalls for the sale of everything needed for sacrifices, such as incense, oil, wine, flour, and so forth. They also opened exchange counters.

At that time Roman coins were in circulation, but the Jewish law (Ex 30:13) required that the temple tax be paid in Jewish coin, the sacred shekels.

Therefore those who came to Jerusalem for Passover had to exchange their money, and this exchange gave the money changers a large income.

Striving for profit, the Jews also traded in the temple court in other items not required for sacrifices. The proof of this is the presence there of oxen, which did not belong among Paschal and sacrificial animals.

The Sanhedrin, guardian of Jewish piety and of the sanctity of the temple, not only looked indifferently upon this market. In all likelihood, it even encouraged the conversion of the temple into a bazaar.

For its members, the chief priests, bred doves and sold them for sacrifices at very high prices.

They speak only of His stay there during the Passover at which He suffered. John also speaks of His activity at certain other feasts (Jn 5:1; Jn 7:2, 37; Jn 12:1 and following).

By supplementing the accounts of the first three Evangelists, John presents more vividly the place and manner of the Lord Jesus' activity as a great teacher and wonderworker among the Jewish people.

It was natural in the course of events, and necessary, that Christ should often be in Jerusalem, especially during the great feasts.

Here was the center, concentration, and heart of the entire life of the Jewish people. Here was the temple. Here sacrifices were offered and feasts were celebrated. Here was the Sanhedrin.

Here, as in the capital, the religious and public life of the people was most fully expressed. Here lay the whole sum of His spiritual activity, and here the Lord had to act as Messiah.

With the enormous concourse of people to Jerusalem for the feasts from Judea and other lands, the Lord's field of action there at those times was very broad.

The report of Him as a great prophet and wonderworker had to be carried by pilgrims to all the places and countries from which they came. Thus His universal teaching would be prepared for a good reception when it reached them.

The Lord Himself also viewed this in this way (Jn 12:20, 23).

One of the broad courts by the temple had been turned into a noisy bazaar. Sacrificial animals and doves were sold there, and money changers conducted their operations, sitting at tables with heaps of money.

The presence of money changers at the temple is explained by the fact that the Jews, who at that time were under Roman rule, used Roman coins in ordinary daily life.

But the Jewish law required that the temple tax be paid in Jewish coins, the sacred shekels (Ex 30:13). The money changers were stationed at the temple to exchange Roman coins for sacred shekels.

For the feast of Passover, a vast number of people came to Jerusalem, up to two million, from all ends of the broad Roman Empire. They included not only Jews, but also Gentiles who had accepted Judaism, the proselytes.

One may imagine how lively the trade and the exchange of money were.

The members of the Sanhedrin and the leaders of the Jewish people were evidently personally interested in the commercial operations at the temple. They did not notice all the indecency of turning the temple into a bazaar.

And for trade they chose precisely the court intended for the Gentiles.

Those disposed toward faith in the one true God by reading the sacred Hebrew books, and who had come from afar to pray in the temple, the only one in the whole world, found themselves in the noisy setting of an international market.

By such an attitude toward the temple, the Jews, in the Apostle Paul's expression, blasphemed the name of God among the Gentiles (Rom 2:23-24; cf. 17-21).

Zigabenus and others placed that expulsion before the history of the Savior's Passion. The expulsion described by John was accompanied by special severity of rebuke and by an objection from the Pharisees. This was absent from the expulsion before the Passion.

"And He found in the temple," ιερω, "those who sold and bought." The Ιερον, the sacred precinct of the Jerusalem temple, formed the very outer part of the temple, five hundred cubits long and wide, with five gates.

There the Gentiles prayed. There were the treasury and houses of mercy. There doves, lambs, oxen, and other requirements for sacrifice were sold.

There also sat the money changers, who exchanged large coins for small ones, and foreign coins for Hebrew ones, at interest.

Although in the Savior's time the temple tax was received in every place, and it was paid in the month of Adar, not in the Paschal month of Nisan, there was no need before Passover to exchange Hebrew shekels in the Court of the Gentiles.

Yet calculations of gain still exchanged money in the holy place, under various pretexts.

The noise of sellers and buyers not only deafened pious proselytes, but was heard even in the temple. Deceits, quarrels, and fights altogether defiled the sanctuary.

Blessed Jerome wrote in Comm ad Mutth 21, 12 that priests engaged in commerce and the exchange of money in the temple court.

Although other monuments do not say this directly of the Jewish priests, it is hard to believe that the priesthood, so passionate for money, had no financial dealings with the merchants.

They traded in a place that was under the full administration of the priests.

At the beginning of His preaching, the Lord drives the merchants out of the temple precincts. Before His sufferings, He repeats the same deed. The first time He manifests Himself to the people as the Christ. The last time, by this action and by His words, He foretells the destruction of Jerusalem and the temple.

Concerning the last word, we note that in the Greek text the word hieron is used to designate the temple. This word means the whole complex of the temple buildings with its courts, one of which was called the court of the foreigners.

The temple itself, that is, the sacred part of the temple, is called naos in the Gospels. This very word is used in verses 19, 20, and 21 of this chapter, when the sanctuary and the temple of the Lord Jesus' body are spoken of. The word hieron is used, for example, in Mt 4:5; 12:6; 24:1; Lk 2:37; Jn 10:23. The word naos is used in Mt 23:17, 35; Lk 1:21; Jn 2, and elsewhere.

From all this it is clear that those selling were not sitting in the temple itself, but in one of the temple courts or porches. Nevertheless, their presence within the temple buildings was a gross violation both of the law and of religious feeling itself.

The permission to trade in the temple proves how little religious feeling the high priest and his closest assistants had in their souls. In all likelihood, permission to trade within the temple enclosure formed part of the high priest's income.

It is noteworthy that the merchants, neither the first time nor the second, apparently offer any resistance. The "Jews" intervene for them (v. 18). Yet neither they nor the merchants dare to tell the Lord that His action is unlawful. They only ask by what authority He acts.

In essence it is clear that trade within the temple precincts was unlawful. The sellers of oxen, meaning cattle, bulls and heifers, and of sheep and doves sold them for the sacrifices prescribed by law (see Lev 1-7; 11; 14; 15; 17).

They probably did this not only before the feasts, but had permanent places of trade there. For guilt offerings and purification offerings, prescribed by the law, had to be offered at every occasion of sin or defilement. Peace offerings were also offered for every family celebration or family joy.

Those merchants whom the Slavonic text calls "money-dealers," that is, moneychangers, played an important role, because coins bearing images of gods or emperors were not accepted in the temple. Every such coin, before being given to the temple, had to be exchanged for a coin of Jewish minting.

Concerning verse 13, we also note that the Lord "goes up" to Jerusalem, "into the hill country" (cf. Lk 1:39), both in comparison with Galilee and because of its mountainous structure.

The Lord goes to "Jerusalem, that kills the prophets" (Mt 23:37). For as He Himself said, "Nevertheless I must go today and tomorrow and the day following; for it cannot be that a prophet should perish outside Jerusalem" (Lk 13:33).