ACC ~ John 18 v31

JESUS WAS ONE OF THEIR OWN

TERTULLIAN: It was not as if he belonged to another god that they conceived an aversion against Christ and persecuted him, but simply as a man whom they regarded as a wonder-working juggler and an enemy because of his teaching. They brought him therefore to trial as a mere man, and one of their own too—that is, a Jew (only they saw him as a renegade and a destroyer of Judaism)—and punished him according to their law. If he had been a stranger, indeed, they would not have sat in judgment over him. AGAINST MARCION 3.6. [1]

[1] ANF 3:326*; CCL 1:516.

THEY KILLED OTHERS, WHY NOT NOW?

CHRYSOSTOM: And how did the expression “It is not lawful for us to put any man to death” declare this? Either the Evangelist means that Jesus was about to be slain not by the Jews only but by the Gentiles also, or that it was not lawful for them to crucify. But if they say, “It is not lawful for us to put anyone to death,” they say it with reference to that season. For they did put people to death, but they did so in a different way, as is evident in the case of Stephen, who was stoned. [1] But they desired to crucify [Jesus] so that they might make a spectacle of the manner of his death. HOMILIES ON THE GOSPEL OF JOHN 83.4. [2]

[1] See Acts 7:58-60.

[2] NPNF 1 14:310**.

REMAIN CLEAN WHILE OTHERS DO THE DIRTY WORK?

AUGUSTINE: What is this that their insane cruelty says? Did not they put him to death whom they were here presenting for that very purpose? Or does the cross perhaps fail to kill? This is the kind of foolishness of those who persecute wisdom instead of pursuing it. What then do the words mean, “It is not lawful for us to put any person to death”? If he is a malefactor, why is it not lawful? Didn’t the law command them not to spare malefactors, especially those who tried to seduce them away from their God—which is what they considered Jesus was doing? We are, however, to understand that they said that it was not lawful for them to put anyone to death because of the sanctity of the festal day that they had just begun to celebrate and on account of which they were afraid of being defiled even by entering the Praetorium. Has your excessive malice so blinded you, false Israelites, that you imagined that you are unpolluted by the blood of the innocent because you gave it up to be shed by someone else? TRACTATES ON THE GOSPEL OF JOHN 114.4. [1]

[1] CCL 36:641-42; NPNF 1 7:421-22**.