ACC ~ Matthew 27 v1 - 2

WHEN MORNING CAME

LEO THE GREAT: O religious leaders [of the Jews], this morning was far from your time of ascendency, as it might have seemed to you. Your sun was in fact beginning to set. The dawn you expected did not come. A night of blackest darkness was brooding over your spiteful hearts. Out of this morning would come the overthrow of the temple and its altars, the surpassing of the law and the prophets, the undoing of the kingship and priesthood, turning youth to continual lament. [1] For you set out that morning on a mad and bloody course. You offered up to die the Author of life, the Lord of glory. Pilate—that terror-stricken judge—was overcome by your shouts, so that he chose a man for pardon who was a murderer and demanded the crucifixion of the Savior of the world. SERMON 41.5. [2]

[1] The death of Jesus has signified the exhaustion of the function of the temple.

[2] SC 74:35; NPNF 2 12:166**.

BREAKING FETTERS

ORIGEN: Anyone who demands from me a scriptural text concerning the breaking of those fetters with which the chief priests and elders bound Jesus should understand that it was on account of this very event that Jesus said through the prophet, “Let us break their bonds.” [1] It was just as though Jesus had said this of the chief priests and elders, or even more so of those rulers who operated through them and of the kings of the world who “set themselves,” and of those rulers who “take counsel together against the Lord and against his anointed,” who also said, “let us cast their cords from us.” [2]

Our inquirer will be satisfied still more with scriptural demonstration that Jesus broke the chains of those who “took counsel” against him and led him away, bound, if he understands the meaning of what was written concerning Samson, who also broke the fetters of those foreigners who bound him, for he was a Nazirite of God and had power in his uncut head of hair. [3] If therefore he whose power came from the hair on his head was able to break the chains of the oppressors who bound him, how much more will Christ decisively break those chains binding him, who, after performing great signs and miracles, freely delivered himself to be bound (the power of his divine nature lay dormant and still, allowing him to be captured). Samson’s bonds were but a type of Christ’s. COMMENTARY ON MATTHEW 115. [4]

[1] Ps 2:3. On the messianic significance of Psalm 2 mentioned by Origen, see p. 265 n. 3.

[2] Ps 2:2-3.

[3] Judg 16:4-22.

[4] GCS 38.2:242-43.

THEY BOUND HIM

JEROME: The Lord was led not only to Pilate but also to Herod so that he could be mocked by both. Notice the solicitude with which the priests carried out their evil doing; they remained vigilant throughout the night in preparation for committing murder. “And they delivered him bound to Pilate.” It was their customary practice to bind a man who had been condemned to death and to hand him over to his judge. COMMENTARY ON MATTHEW 4.27.1-2. [1]

[1] CCL 77:263.

Mt