ACC ~ John 12 v14

JESUS’ BORROWED DONKEY

TERTULLIAN For state reasons, the various orders of the [Roman] citizens … are crowned with laurel crowns. … There are also provincial crowns of gold, needing now the larger heads of images instead of those of men. But your orders, [1] and your magistracies and your very place of meeting, that is, the church, are Christ’s. You belong to him, for you have been enrolled in the books of life. [2] There the blood of the Lord serves for your purple robe, and your broad stripe is his own cross. There the axe is already laid to the trunk of the tree. [3] There the branch is from the root of Jesse. [4] Never mind the state horses with their crown. Your Lord, when, according to the Scripture, he would enter Jerusalem in triumph, had not even a donkey of his own. These [put their trust] in chariots, and these in horses. But we will seek our help in the name of the Lord our God. [5] THE CHAPLET 13.1-2. [6]

[1] The various clerical offices of those to whom he is writing.

[2] Phil 4:3.

[3] Mt 3:10.

[4] Is 11:1.

[5] Ps 20:7 (19:8 LXX, Vg).

[6] ANF 3:101; CCL 2:1060-61.

THE DONKEY AND THE COLT

CHRYSOSTOM But how does it happen that the other evangelists say that he sent disciples and said, “Loose the donkey and the colt,” [1] while John says nothing of the kind but that, “having found a young donkey, he sat on it”? Because it is likely that both circumstances took place, and that after the donkey was loosed, while the disciples were bringing it, he found [the colt] and sat on it. HOMILIES ON THE GOSPEL OF JOHN 66.1. [2]

[1] Mt 21:2.

[2] NPNF 1 14:245*.

SUBJECTION OF GENTILES

CYRIL OF ALEXANDRIA And since, contrary to his usual habits, on this occasion only, Christ appears seated on a donkey, we do not say that he sat on it because it was a long distance to the city. For it was not more than two miles away. [1] Nor do we say that it was because there was a multitude. For it is certain that on other occasions when he was found with a multitude he did not do this; but he does this to indicate that he is about to make subject to himself as a new people the unclean among the Gentiles, and to lead them up to the prerogative of righteousness and to the Jerusalem above of which the earthly is a type. It is into this Jerusalem that this people, being made clean, shall enter with Christ, who will be hymned by the guileless angels of whom the babes are a type. And he calls the donkey a colt, because the people of the Gentiles had been untrained in the piety that faith produces. COMMENTARY ON THE GOSPEL OF JOHN 8. [2]

[1] See Jn 11:18.

[2] LF 48:142.

Jn