Matthew 26:37 Komentář

And it came to pass, when Jesus had finished all these sayings,.... Meaning either all that are recorded by this evangelist, all the sermons and discourses of Christ, delivered both to the people of the Jews, and to his disciples; his conversation with the former, and his divine instructions and prudent advice to the latter, together with all his excellent parables, which are largely related in this book; or else what is said in the two preceding chapters, concerning the destruction of Jerusalem, and the end of the world, the state of the church, and conduct of his servants to the end of time, expressed in the parables of the virgins and talents, and concerning the last judgment and final state of all men: he said unto his disciples; who now were alone with him: having finished his prophetic, and being about to enter on his priestly office, he gives his disciples some intimations of its near approach.

Then saith he unto them,.... The three disciples, Peter, James, and John, who, by his looks and gestures, might know somewhat of the inward distress of his mind; yet he choose to express it to them in words, saying, my soul is exceeding sorrowful, even unto death. That Christ had an human soul, as well as an human body, is clear from hence; and which was possessed of the same passions as ours are, but without sin, such as joy, love, grief, sorrow, &c. and at this time its sorrows were exceeding great: his soul was beset all around with the sins of his people; these took hold on him, and encompassed him, which must, in the most sensible manner, affect his pure and spotless mind; the sorrows of death and hell surrounded him on every side, insomuch that the least degree of comfort was not let in to him; nor was there any way open for it, so that his soul was overwhelmed with sorrow; his heart was ready to break; he was brought even, as it were, to the dust of death; nor would his sorrows leave him, he was persuaded, until soul and body were separated from each other; see a like phrase in Jdg 16:16, tarry ye here. The Ethiopic adds, "till I shall return", for he was going a little further from them, to vent his grief, and pour out his soul unto God. Munster's Hebrew Gospel reads it, "expect me", or "wait for me here", signifying, that he should return to them shortly, and watch with me. It was night, and they might be heavy and inclined to sleep: he knew it would be an hour of temptation both to him and them, and therefore advises them to watch against it; and to observe how it would go with him, and what should befall him, that they might be witnesses of it, and be able to testify what agonies he endured, what grace he exercised, and how submissive he was to his Father's will.

When we read that the Lord was sad, we must examine everything that was said to find out why he was sad. He previously warned that they would all fall away. Brimming with confidence, Peter responded that even though all the others might be alarmed, he would not be moved—he who the Lord predicted would deny knowing him three times. In fact, Peter and all the other disciples promised that even in the face of death they would not deny him. He then proceeded on and ordered his disciples to sit down while he prayed. Having brought with him Peter, James and John, he began to grieve. Before he brought them along with him, he did not feel sad. It was only after they had accompanied him that he grew exceedingly sad. His sadness thus arose not from himself but from those whom he had taken with him. It must be realized that the Son of man brought with him none but those whom he showed that he would come into his kingdom at that time when, in the presence of Moses and Elijah on the mountain, he was surrounded by all the splendor of his eternal glory. But the reason for bringing them with him both then and now was the same.

These words, He began to be sorrowful and very heavy, are interpreted by heretics that fear of death assailed the Son of God, being (as they allege) neither begotten from eternity, nor existing in the Father's infinite substance, but produced out of nothing by Him who created all things; and that hence He was liable to anguish of grief, and fear of death. And He who can fear death can also die; and He who can die, though He shall exist after death, yet is not eternal through Him who begot Him in past time. Had these faith to receive the Gospels, they would know that the Word was in the beginning God, and from the beginning with God, and that the eternity of Him who begets and Him who is begotten is one and the same. But if the assumption of flesh infected with its natural infirmity the virtue of that incorruptible substance, so that it became subject to pain, and shrinking from death, it would also become thereby liable to corruption, and thus its immortality being changed into fear, that which is in it is capable of at some time ceasing to be. But God ever is without measure of time, and such as He is, He continues to be eternally. Nothing then in God can die, nor can God have any fear springing out of Himself. (de Trin. x. 10.) I suppose that there are some who offer here no other cause of His fear than His passion and death. I ask those who think thus, whether it stands with reason that He should have feared to die, who banished from the Apostles all fear of death, and exhorted them to the glory of martyrdom? How can we suppose Him to have felt pain and grief in the sacrament of death, who rewards with life those who die for Him? And what pangs of death could He fear, who came to death of the free choice of His own power? And if His Passion was to do Him honour, how could the fear of His Passion make Him sorrowful? (in loc.) Since then we read that the Lord was sorrowful, let us discover the causes of His agony. He had forewarned them all that they would be offended, and Peter that he would thrice deny his Lord; and taking him and James and John, He began to be sorrowful. Therefore He was not sorrowful till He took them, but all His fear began after He had taken them; so that His agony was not for Himself, but for them whom He had taken.

And He takes with Him the three, and saith unto them, "my soul is exceeding sorrowful, even unto death." Wherefore doth He not take all with Him? That they might not be cast down; but these He taketh that had been spectators of His glory.

(Verse 37) And taking with him Peter and the two sons of Zebedee, he began to be sad and sorrowful. What we have said above about the passion and pre-passion is also shown in the present chapter, that the Lord, in order to prove the truth of his assumption as a man, was truly saddened, but so that the passion would not dominate his soul, he began to be saddened through pre-sorrow. For it is one thing to be saddened, and another thing to begin to be saddened. But He was saddened not by the fear of suffering, for which He had come, that He might suffer; and He had reprimanded Peter for his timidity; but on account of the most unfortunate Judas, and the scandal of all the apostles, and the rejection of the Jewish people, and the destruction of miserable Jerusalem. Hence Jonas also, grieving over the withering of a gourd or a ivy, was grieved (Jonah 4), unwilling to lose his former shelter. But if the sadness of the soul is interpreted by the heretics not as the affection of the Savior towards those who are about to perish, but as the suffering, let them answer how they explain that which is said through Ezekiel in the person of God: And in all these things you have saddened me (Ezekiel 16, Septuagint version).

(non. occ.) But we say that passible man was so taken by God the Son, that His Deity remained impassible. Indeed the Son of God suffered, not by imputation but actually, all that Scripture testifies, in respect of that part of Him which could suffer, viz. in respect of the substance that He had taken on Him. The Lord therefore sorrowed not from fear of suffering, for for this cause He had come that He should suffer, and had rebuked Peter for his fearfulness; (Matt. 14:31.) but for the wretched Judas, for the offence of the rest of the Apostles, for the rejection and reprobation of the Jewish nation, and the overthrow of unhappy Jerusalem. Our Lord therefore sorrowed to prove the reality of the Man which He had taken upon Him; but that passion might bear no sway in His mind, He began to be sorrowful by pro-passion; for it is one thing to be sorrowful, and another to be very sorrowful.

(Lib. 83. Quæst. q. 80.) We have the narratives of the Evangelists, by which we know that Christ was both born of the Blessed Virgin Mary, was seized by the Jews, scourged, crucified, put to death, and buried in a tomb, all which cannot be supposed to have taken place without a body, and not even the maddest will say that these things are to be understood figuratively, when they are told by men who wrote what they remembered to have happened. These then are witnesses that He had a body, as those affections which cannot be without mind prove Him to have had a mind, and which we read in the accounts of the same Evangelists, that Jesus wondered, was angry, was sorrowful. (de. Civ. Dei, xiv. 9.) Since then these things are related in the Evangelists, they are not surely false, but as when He willed He became Man, so likewise when He willed He took into His human soul these passions for the sake of adding assurance to the dispensation. We indeed have these passions by reason of the weakness of our human nature; not so the Lord Jesus, whose weakness was of power.

In what fashion He went forward it describes, And taking with him Peter and the two sons of Zebedee, he began to be sorrowful and very heavy; the same to whom He had shown His glory in the mount. By this place are overthrown the Manichæans, who said that He took an unreal body; and those also who said that He had not a real soul, but His Divinity in place of a soul

(Fid. Orth. iii. 23.) Or otherwise; All things which have not yet been brought into existence by their Maker have a natural desire of existence, and naturally shun non-existence. God the Word then, having been made Man, had this desire, through which He desired food, drink, and sleep, by which life is supported, and naturally used them, and contrariwise shunned the things that are destructive of life. Hence in the season of His Passion which He endured voluntarily, He had the natural fear and sorrow for death. For there is a natural fear wherewith the soul shrinks from separation from the body, by reason of that close sympathy implanted from the first by the Maker of all things.

He does not take all the disciples with Him, but only the three to whom He showed His glory on Mt. Tabor, lest the others see Him very heavy of heart while He was praying, and be scandalized. But He leaves even these three and goes away to a place to pray that was yet more private.

And taking with him Peter and the two sons of Zebedee etc. Here he announces the necessity of prayer: and this was sadness. And first, he sets forth the witnesses of the sadness; second, he shows the sadness; third, he repels it. The second is at he began to grow sorrowful and to be sad; the third at stay you here and watch with me. He says therefore and taking with him Peter and the two sons of Zebedee etc. He took three with him. And why these rather than the others? One reason is that these were the firmest, and because his weakness scandalized all of them, he wished to show his weakness more to these than to the others. Likewise, he had shown them his glory; therefore he wished that just as they had seen his glory, so they might see his weakness, so that they might know that neither did the weakness absorb the glory, nor did the glory absorb the weakness. There follows the display of weakness. And first by action; second by word. And accordingly he does three things: because first he says according to what Christ was saddened; second, why he was saddened; third, how he was saddened. As to the first: he began to grow sorrowful and to be sad. Here two errors must be guarded against; because some said that he was saddened according to his divinity: and this cannot be, because he was saddened because he was passible, but the divinity was not passible. Likewise, the opinion of the Arians, otherwise of Eunomius, was that in Christ there was no soul, but the Word in place of the soul. And why did he say this? So that all things pertaining to deficiency might be referred to the Word, in order to show it to be less than the Father. And this is false. Therefore he suffered according to that by which he could suffer, i.e., according to his soul.

GLORIOUS ANGELIC ANNOUNCEMENT ON THE FIRST DAY OF THE WEEK, THAT CHRIST IS RISEN--HIS APPEARANCE TO THE WOMEN--THE GUARDS BRIBED TO GIVE A FALSE ACCOUNT OF THE RESURRECTION. ( = Mar 16:1-8; Luk 24:1-8; Joh 20:1). (Mat 28:1-15) In the end of the sabbath, as it began to dawn--after the Sabbath, as it grew toward daylight. toward the first day of the week--Luke (Luk 24:1) has it, "very early in the morning"--properly, "at the first appearance of daybreak"; and corresponding with this, John (Joh 20:1) says, "when it was yet dark." See on Mar 16:2. Not an hour, it would seem, was lost by those dear lovers of the Lord Jesus. came Mary Magdalene, and the other Mary--"the mother of James and Joses" (see on Mat 27:56; Mat 27:61). to see the sepulchre--with a view to the anointing of the body, for which they had made all their preparations. (See on Mar 16:1-2). And, behold, there was--that is, there had been, before the arrival of the women. a great earthquake; for the angel of the Lord descended from heaven, &c.--And this was the state of things when the women drew near. Some judicious critics think all this was transacted while the women were approaching; but the view we have given, which is the prevalent one, seems the more natural. All this august preparation--recorded by Matthew alone--bespoke the grandeur of the exit which was to follow. The angel sat upon the huge stone, to overawe, with the lightning--luster that darted from him, the Roman guard, and do honor to his rising Lord.