Cornelius a Lapide

And the High Priest said to Him, 1 adjure Thee by the Living God that Thou tell us whether Thou be the Christ, the Son of God. I, the High Priest, am the Vicar of God on earth, and therefore by the authority of God committed to me, I call God to witness, and conjure Thee to answer. Caiaphas here touches the essence of the whole matter. Jesus said that He was the Christ, sent with supreme power for the salvation of men. The Chief Priests pertinaciously denied it He therefore asks the question not for information, but in order to condemn Him. For if He said He were, they condemned Him to death as a blasphemer ; but if He said He were not, he would have replied, Why then didst Thou pass Thyself off with the people as Christ the Son of God ? and would consequently have condemned Him as a false Prophet, in having made Himself equal with God, as the Jews urged against Him (John v. 19). For the whole ground of their hatred against Him was that He, a man, as it seemed, of low birth, said He was Christ and Son of God, preached accordingly without their sanction, despised their foolish traditions, and publicly and sharply reproved their vices and crimes