The Great Commentary (Mossman/Cobb English)

It was Mary who anointed the Lord with ointment , and wiped His feet with her hair (Luke vii. 37). I have shown that the Mary who twice, or as some say, three times, anointed Christ, was without doubt the same as Mary Magdalene ; although some think that there were two, and others three. Whose brother Lazarus was sick . John adds this, to suggest a cause for the raising of Lazarus, namely, that he was the brother of the Magdalene, who was wholly devoted to Jesus, and besought of Him the raising up of her brother Lazarus. Therefore his sisters sent f &c. Cyril, Theophylact, and Leontius think that these are words of astonishment and as of a person wondering, How is it possible that one should be stricken down by disease whom Thou lovest, Lord, who hast the power of life and death ? how can sickness have dared to attack one who is filled with love of Thee ? and how can weakness hold him in whom Thy love dwells ? Others, more simply, think the sisters to have spoken that out of faith and confidence. As S. Augustine, and from him Bede : They did not say, Come, for to one who loved it was enough only to announce the fact. They did not dare to say, Come and heal ; they did not dare to say, Give the command there, and here it shall come to pass, for why shall it not be so with them, if the faith of that centurion is praised by speaking thus? For he said, Lord, I am not worthy that Thou shouldest enter under my roof, but speak the word only, and my servant shall be healed. None of these things said they ; but only, Lord > he whom Thou lovest is sick ; it is enough that Thou knowest it ; for Thou wilt not love and leave uncared for ! This then is the prayer implied, but hidden and implicit, because it signifies the necessity and the desire for help ; which is often more efficacious than an open solicitation, because it is more humble, Digitized by V^rOOQie 388 modest, relying, and trustful So out of S. Thomas Suarez* Treatise on Prayer. Therefore this petition of the sisters shows, First, great faith ; for they do not say, Come, hasten, lest death be beforehand with Thee. For they believe that Christ is able to cure even when absent ; yea, even to raise again the dead. So Cyril, Theophylact, Rupertus. Secondly, great trustfulness, in that they confided that Christ, at the mere hearing of the sickness, would bring a remedy to it, whence they do not multiply words and petitions. Thirdly, great love : Behold^ he whom Thou lovest; as if they would say, Thou lovest us, and we Thee : it is sufficient for one who loves to announce the danger of the loved one. For love outweighs all prayers. Fourthly, resignation ; for they resign themselves wholly to the providence of Christ, that concerning the disease and the sufferer, He should order and dispose as should befit His providence and love. Therefore this their prayer was efficacious, and is to be frequently used and imitated by us. Figuratively, Rabanus and from him the Gloss : Lazarus, he says, is a sinner and is loved by the Lord ; for He has not come to call the righteous, but sinners ; the sisters are holy men, or good thoughts, who pray for the loosing of sins. Lastly, the sisters did not themselves come to Jesus, but only sent messengers, both because they were women, to whom the care of the house pertained, and to whom a long journey would have been unfitting ; and because their brother Lazarus, who was nigh unto death, needed their assistance ; and because, trusting in the goodness and love of Christ, they thought a messenger sufficient So S. Chrysostom, Cyril, and Euthymius

Now Jesus loved Martha, &c. Because of the singular love, devotion, and liberality with which they used to provide for Jesus and His disciples, for Martha had hospitable care for Jesus. Mary having been healed and converted by Christ, devoted herself wholly to Him, and indeed used to accompany Him when He went from town to town preaching, and ministered to Him of her substance (S. Luke viii. 2, 3). Lazarus imitated his sisters. John here inserts the mention of the love of Jesus, not so much that he Digitized by V^rOOQie 390 may assign that cause for the sickness of Lazarus, as Cyril thinks, as if Jesus sent the sickness to Lazarus, because He loved him and his sisters, according to Rev. iii. 19, “As many as I love I rebuke and chasten but to signify that Jesus, after He had received the news of the sickness of Lazarus, plainly had a fixed purpose to heal him, but in suitable time and way. For His love made Him anxious respecting the welfare of Lazarus, and therefore He did all things which John narrates in order. Finally, Jesus so loved Lazarus and his sisters, that on their account He raised Lazarus from death, even although He knew that the raising of Lazarus would be to Himself the cause of the Cross and death. The life therefore of Lazarus was the death of Christ

When he had heard , &c. He remained therefore in the same place for two days, during which Lazarus died, because He willed not to cure a sick man, but to raise one dead, and even four days buried and decaying ; which was a far greater benefit and miracle, and was not open to the calumnies of the Jews, who might say that Lazarus was not truly dead, and therefore not raised, but only in a swoon or faint, from which he recovered, not by the help of Christ, but by the force of nature and youth

Then after that saith He to His disciples , Let us go into Judea again. By thus forewarning, Christ calms the fears of His timid disciples ; for they feared to return with Him into Judea, because the Jews had a little before sought to stone Him (x. 31). So S. Chrysostom : “ Never at any other time did the Lord announce to His disciples whither He was about to go; but here they were greatly afraid of being harassed should He set out without warning. They feared both for Him and for themselves, for they were not strong in the faith.” S. Augustine says : “ Christ departed, as a man, from Judea, that He might not be stoned : but in returning, forgetful of His weakness, He showed His power.”

Jesus answered ^ Are there not twelve hours in the day t Digitized by V^rOOQie MEANING OF THE “TWELVE HOURS.” 391 Lyra and those who follow him expound thus, as if it were “ As the twelve hours change through the day, and the breezes change with them, so the minds of the Jews may easily be changed, that those who before hated Me may now love and receive Me ! 99 Secondly, S. Augustine, Bede, and Rupertus : “As the twelve hours follow the day, that is, the course of the sun, so that they succeed each other in turn, so it is your duty to follow Me ; for I am as it were your sun and day, but ye accompany Me as the twelve hours.” And the Gloss: “Christ calls Himself the day , in which they ought to walk, that they may not stumble, and without whom if they walk they stumble; as the disciples just now did in being unwilling that He should die, who came to die for men; but them He calls hours, because these follow the day.” Thirdly, S. Cyril, as if : “ Some hours of My day, that is, of My life, shall remain, in which it behoves Me to preach and to benefit the Jews : the night will come, that is, My Passion and Death ; because of which I shall encompass them in the shades of slaughter and calamity : for night is the symbol of wrath and calamities.” Fourthly and rightly : Certain and fixed is the period of day, that is, of twelve hours, within which any one may walk without stumbling, because he has the light by which he sees and avoids obstacles : so and with equal certainty the time of My life is fixed by God the Father, in which I have to live and do the works which I have been sent to perform. This therefore I call the day ; and in this I have no danger to fear from the Jews for Myself or for you, nor can I be slain before the time foreordained for Me by My Father ; that is, before the setting and night of My life shall come. If any man walk, &c. Ver. io. — But if a man walk in the night, &c. While it is day , that is, while the time of life remains to Me, ye will not stumble, O disciples, while following Me into Judea; but when the night shall have come, that is, death and the close of My life, then the Jews will persecute and kill you as My disciples, as they have persecuted and killed Me. So Rupertus. Mystically, he who Digitized by V^rOOQie 392 T follows the day, that is, the sun and light of faith and grace, does not stumble, does not fall into offences ; but he who walks in the night, that is, in the darkness of ignorance and concupiscence, he falls into various faults and penalties. Eph. v. 8. Ver. 1 1. — These things said He, &c, He calls death sleep, because Lazarus was soon to be aroused and awakened from it Hear S. Augustine : To the Lord, who called him from the sepulchre with as much ease as thou callest one sleeping from his bed, he was merely asleep ; to men, who were not able to raise him up, he was dead. So Paul calls the dead who are to rise again, sleepers (i Thess. iv. 14)

Then said His disciples. Lord, if he sleep, he shall do well For in the sick sleep is usually the sign and forerunner, and often the cause, of health. The sense is as if it were said, Let us suffer him to sleep, that he may the more quickly recover : wherefore there is no reason that we should go to him. So S. Augustine and Cyril Ver. 1 3. — Howbeit Jesus spake of his death, &c. Because they took the “ sleepeth ” simply, not symbolically, of death, as Christ meant it

Then said Jesus unto them plainly , Lazarus is dead. He showed Himself to be a prophet, yea, the Son of God, inasmuch as He reveals things secret and distant : for such was this death of Lazarus, which He here clearly declares, to take away the disciples’ error as to his sleep. For the messenger had announced to Christ only his sickness, not his death

And I am glad for your sokes that I was not there. Christ therefore declaring his death, showed that He knew it not in a human manner, but in a Divine. For how, says Augustine, should the thing be hidden from Him who had created the man who was dying ? and into whose hands his soul had gone forth ? Nevertheless let us go unto him. Christ speaks of the dead as though he were living, because He was about to make him so, by raising him from the dead. So Cyril

Then when Jesus came [to Bethany, as some Greek Codices add] He found that he had lain in the grave four days already. That is, he had been buried four days ago. For the messenger respecting the illness of Lazarus came from the sisters to Jesus (says Chrysostom) on the day on which Lazarus died ; the two following days Jesus remained in Bethabara; on the fourth day He went at length to Bethany. Therefore Lazarus seems to have died and been buried on the same day on which the sisters sent a messenger to Jesus ; for otherwise Lazarus would not have been four days dead and buried when Christ came, as is here said. More probably, Euthymius and Maldonatus think that Lazarus died indeed on the day on which the messenger came to Christ, but was buried on the following day, lest perhaps there might remain in Digitized by V^rOOQie 394 him some signs of hidden life ; that Christ remained two days in Bethabara, and on the fourth day departed thence towards Bethany ; but because this journey was one of about ten hours, it could scarcely have been traversed by Christ and the apostles in one day on foot ; hence Christ reached Bethany on the following morning, which was the fifth from the burial of Lazarus and then raised him from the dead ; for neither was it becoming that he should be raised in the evening (lest it might seem a fancied and illusive raising), but in the morning, or in full day. Wherefore Lazarus had already been four complete days in the tomb or sepulchre, and the fifth from his burial was begun ; so that it might well appear to all that he was not only dead, but decaying and devoured by worms. Hence the raising of Lazarus performed by Christ was a most certain and wonderful miracle, which could in no way be hidden, or carped at by the scribes. Typically, one buried four days is a sinner having the habit of sinning, who is dead in sin and as it were buried in it, and lies past cure, without hope of forgiveness and spiritual life. For the first day is that in which any one sins by the consent of the wilL The second, on which any one completes the sin in act. The third, on which he repeats it again and again, and brings upon himself a custom and habit of it The fourth, on which this habit becomes obstinate, and is, as it were, turned into nature; according to S. Augustine (Confess., Lib. viii.), “Out of the perverted will a lust is formed; and when the lust is served, it becomes a custom; and when the custom is not resisted, it becomes a necessity, and thus being connected together by certain (as it were) cramps, they formed what I have called a chain, and a hard slavery held me bound. Such a sinner, then, is by the great and rare grace of Christ to be raised from this sepulchre again ; which, that Christ might signify, He cried with a loud voice, Lazarus , come forth.” So also S. Augustine (On the Sermon of the Lord on the Mount ) : “As we come to sin by three degrees, by suggestion, by delectation, by consent ; so also of the sin itself there are three differences ; in heart, in action, in custom — three deaths, as it were. One, so to Digitized by V^rOOQie DIFFERENT KINDS OF DEAD. 395 speak, in the house, when in the heart consent is given to the desire ; a second, now carried forth, as it were, beyond the door, when consent goes on into action ; a third, when the mind, being weighed down by the force of evil custom, as it were by a mass of earth, is, so to speak, already decaying in the grave. And whosoever has read the Gospels recognises that the Lord has raised up these three kinds of dead. And he perhaps considers what differences there were in the word itself of Him who raised them : in one place, “ Maiden, arise,” and in another, “ Young man, I say unto thee, Arise ; ” and in another, He groaned in spirit, and wept, and again He groaned, and then afterwards He cried with a loud voice, Lazarus , come forth ! Thirdly, the Gloss, out of S. Augustine and Bede. The first day of death is that in which we are born with original sin. The second, that in which, coming to years of discretion, we transgress the natural law. The third, in which we despise the written law. The fourth, in which we disdain also the Gospel of Christ and His grace. Contrariwise, S. Bernard takes the four days for the four motives and actions of a penitent ; the first of fear ; the second of conflict against sins ; the third of grief ; and the fourth of shame for the same

Now Bethany was nigh , &c. A stadium is the eighth part of an Italian mile, and contains therefore 125 paces. John adds this to signify that many had come to Bethany from Jerusalem, inasmuch as it was so near, that they might comfort Martha and Mary, who were sorrowing for the death of Lazarus. And many of the Jews came , & c. Many, especially relations, connections, friends ; for these sisters were rich, noble, honoured, such as are accustomed to have many, either friends or dependent followers. Besides, the grief for a brother’s death is very keen, and many, even strangers, and not known, are accustomed to assemble for the purpose of comforting persons under such a loss. For the grief for death is common to all ; and in it the consolation of all is common also

But 1 know that even now , whatsoever Thou wilt ask of God God will give it Thu And consequently, if Thou shouldest beg of God the raising again of Lazarus, although he has been four days in the tomb, God will give it Thee. “ She thought,” says Cyril, “that Christ came, not that He might raise up Lazarus, but that He might comfort her and Mary ; and therefore she begs of Him that He will raise Lazarus, but indirectly, and with a modest and humble Digitized by V^rOOQie GOD HELPS THE HELPLESS. 397 resignation of her will to His.” Whence, as S. Augustine notes, she did not say : But now I pray Thee to raise my brother ; for whence should she know whether it were good for her brother to rise again ? This only she said, I know that Thou art able ; do this, if Thou wilt ; but whether Thou wilt do it or not is a matter for Thy judgment, not for my presumption to determine. Hence learn by way of moral, that God often suffers us to fall into tribulations, and allows them to increase unto the utmost, and then powerfully helps us, that He may show His Omnipotence and providential mercy. Wherefore the faithful Christian must not then despair, but increase in hope, and pray the more earnestly. For when every human help fails, then the Divine help approaches and is very near. For so God helped Abraham when placed in difficulties (Gen. xx.), and Joseph, forgotten in prison (Gen. xll 14). Also when the Hebrews were oppressed by Pharaoh (Exod. L), and especially when the same people were everywhere surrounded ; on one side by the sea, on the other by the mountains, and elsewhere by the army of Pharaoh. Then He divided the Red Sea and led them safely through, while Pharaoh, pursuing them through the bed of the sea, was overwhelmed with his whole army (Exod. xiv.) So in the time of the Judges, He permitted the same people to be oppressed, now by the Midianites, now by the Moabites, now by the Ammonites, now by the Philistines, that He might bring them to fervent prayer, and to appeal to Him ; and when they did this, He sent them Gideon, Ehud, Samson, and other Judges to free them. So He freed, by means of Judith, the Jews destined to death by Holofernes, and those by Haman He freed through Mordecai, and those by Antiochus through the Maccabees. So He freed David besieged in the cave by Saul, a messenger being sent to Saul that the Philistines were laying waste Judea (1 Sam. xxiiL 24). It is therefore the proper attribute of God to supply the defect of nature, and so also to help the lost and hopeless, according to the saying : u The poor committeth Himself unto Thee ; Thou art the helper of the fatherless” (Ps. x. 14). Ver. 2$.— Jesus saith unto her , Thy brother shall rise again. Jesus Digitized by V^rOOQie 39 » solaces Martha sorrowing for the death of her brother, by a hope of his resurrection, but an ambiguous one, that He might raise her by degrees to faith and hope of so great a miracle as that by which He was soon to raise him, so that she might dispose herself to it, and, as it were, merit it So Leontius

Martha saith unto Him , I know , & c. Christ had said that Lazarus should rise again, not explaining whether now, or in the day of judgment Martha, then, to elicit an explanation of this ambiguity from the mouth of Christ, adds, I know that he shall rise again in the day of judgment ; but this will not be any benefit peculiar to him, but the common lot of all men. But if he shall rise before that time, and be raised by Thee now, this will be a singular privilege to him and to us all ; and I would that Thou wouldest say the word openly. Learn hence, that the Jews, and especially the Pharisees, believed in the immortality of the soul, and from thence the resurrection of the body ; and this appears from 2 Msec, xil 44, Job xix. 26

Jesus said unto her , lam the Resurrection and the Life. I am He who recalls to life, I am He who gives life ; by Me both the dead rise and the living live ; therefore I am able now, immediately, before the general resurrection, to raise up thy brother from death. Whence S. Augustine : She says, My brother shall rise again in the last day . Thou sayest truly ; but He by whom he shall then rise is able [to raise him] also now, because He is the Resurrection and the Life: that is, Christ saith, “ I am the cause of the Resurrection and Life , , so that all rise again by Me, and no one except by Me can rise. 19 Others explain thus, “ I am the resurrection to life, 1 ’ which is an hendiadys. He that believeth in Me, though he were dead, yet shall he live, To Martha asking that the life of the body should be restored to Lazarus, Christ replies more fully, and assigns assuredly life also to the soul ; so that his soul should live here a new life by greater grace, and in the future by glory. “ The soul shall live,” says Augustine, ‘‘until the body shall rise again, never afterwards to die ! n The sense then is, “Not only thy brother shall rise again by My FAITH REQUIRED. 399 power, but whosoever is faithful, who believes in Me with a living faith, working by love, shall live even though he were dead : as well because his soul shall live always by Me a life of love and grace, and of glory in heaven ; as because his body shall be raised by Me from death to a life blessed and eternal in the day of judgment to which Christ here chiefly alludes. Wherefore, although it (the body) may die, yet this will be for a short time only, so that death will seem not so much death as sleep and repose ; from which it shall awake and arise on the day of judgment S. Cyprian (De Mortality cites this place and explains : “ If we believe in Christ, let us have faith in His words and promises ; and since we shall not die for ever, let us come in glad security to Christ, with whom we shall live and reign for ever.”

When Jesus therefore saw her weepings &c. You will ask, of what nature was the groaning and trouble of Christ ? First, Eusebius Emissenus, or rather Gallus : He groaned that He might teach us to groan over sinners. (Infremuit) that is, He groaned: Digitized by V^rOOQie SORROW OF JESUS. 401 But the groan is of one who pities, the murmur of one who is indignant. Nonnus translates agitated or disturbed by His fatherly mind. But this is too general, nor does it explain what or of what nature this trouble was. Secondly, Theophylact by spirit understands Divinity; as if it were said, Jesus by His Spirit, i.e. t by His Divinity, powerfully and as if by groaning, repressed His tears and the feeling of commiseration which was aroused in Him because of the lamentation of Mary and of the Jews, lest bursting forth into tears, and sobbing like others, He might speak in a voice weak and tearful, such as would be unfitting one so grave and holy. To this agree S. Chrysostom and others, who by “ murmur ” understand the feeling of anger, indignation, and wrath which Christ, putting as it were a force upon Himself, mastered and repressed with a serene and firm countenance His feeling of commiseration and the tears ready to flow : as if it were said, Christ threatened and restrained His spirit and His human nature, that it should not yield to weeping. But against this is, first, that this feeling of compassion had plainly not yet been aroused when Christ groaned, but a little after, when He was troubled. Secondly, because in Christ these passions and affections were not involuntary and violent, but freely and voluntarily assumed, as I shall soon state. I say then, that Christ here displayed the feeling and act of murmuring (A. V. groaning ), that is, of indignation in spirit or mind and the innermost perceptions of the soul, when by sign and murmur, or indignant voice, He signified outwardly the grief which He felt arising from the death of Lazarus, and from the sobbing of Mary and the Jews : and that by this murmur He, as it were, prepared and animated Himself to the arduous combat with death, that He might signify how difficult would be the raising of Lazarus from the grave after four days’ dwelling there. Whence S. Augustine says : In the voice of indignation appears the hope of resurrection ; in truth Jesus foresaw that He because of the raising up of Lazarus would be crucified by the envious Pharisees ; yet not allowing this to stand in the way, He determined to raise him up ; which act of VOL. IV. 2 c Digitized by V^rOOQie 402 heroic fortitude He allowed to be manifested in this groan. So soldiers groan when battle is near, and excite and sharpen their anger for the difficult and perilous combat that is imminent; foi their anger is the whetstone of valour and bravery. Hence also we, when temptation, whether of the devil, the flesh, and the world, threatens, should sharpen our anger against them, that we may overcome the temptation ; for by anger is concupiscence overcome, though the difficulty of the task be great Further, this murmur, that is, indignation, was against death, and the devil, by whose envy death had entered into the world ; which had been the cause of such bitter sorrow and lamentation. And was troubled (Gr. and Vulg. He troubled Himself ). That is, He permitted freely and willingly to Himself the strong feeling both of indignation, as already mentioned, and of commiseration and tears, because of the common lamentation of Martha, Mary, and the rest ; for it woflld have been inhuman not to grieve and sympathise with them. For them therefore Jesus was troubled. Note these passions of indignation, sorrow, commiseration, and weeping, were in such a manner in Christ as not to overbear His reason and will, or to arise unbidden as they are aroused with us ; but rather to follow His reason, and to be ruled and excited by it On which account right reason always used to direct and regulate them. Therefore [S. John] says, He troubled Himself (turbavit Seipsum) ; not, He was troubled Wherefore these passions were in Christ not so much passions as feelings in place of passions, freely taken, as divines teach, out of Damascene. For Christ was able as He chose to excite them, to soften, to moderate, to rule, to direct, much more completely than a charioteer does his horses and his chariot. He troubled therefore himself: putting on the feeling of grief, anger, and compassion, and showing it by a change of voice and countenance because of grief. Therefore the proper cause of this murmur and trouble of Christ was the death of Lazarus, and the weeping of Mary and the Jews, as appears from the verses themselves. The misery therefore of Lazarus and of all men excited the Digitized by V^rOOQie CHRIST BECAME ALL THINGS TO ALL. 403 pity of Christ, the pity excited indignation against such troubles, the indignation increased the pity, and at the same time with it aroused zeal, and a purpose of taking away those troubles, even with the casting away of His own life by the death upon the Cross, by which so great a benefit was alone to be purchased, according to what Isaiah says (lxiii. 4), “The day of vengeance is in my heart . . . and my fury it upheld me.”

And I knew that Thou hearest Me always: but because , , &c., *.&, what I said aloud (ver. 41)

And this spake he . . . that Jesus should die for that nation : i.e., of the Jews. Note, that Caiaphas, with the other chief priests being most hostile to Christ, wished out of private hate towards Him to speak out distinctly the same thing which the others secretly hinted at, but did not expressly state ; namely, that Christ must be taken out of the way for the safety of the people, that they might not be attacked by the Romans, as I have said. But the Spirit turned the force of his words, when he wished to speak in this sense, as high priest and head of the Church, to others in which he should express the contrary meaning, and should describe and strengthen a very true faith in Christ ; namely, that it was expedient that Christ should die for the people, for the salvation of the people ; and by His death, as if by the payment of a price, should redeem them from sin, from the devil, from death, and from hell, those, I say, who would otherwise perish eternally. For the words of Caiaphas properly and precisely signify this. For otherwise, according to the wicked intention towards Christ in the mind of Caiaphas, he ought rather to have said thus : “ It is expedient that one man, FALL OF THE JEWISH CHURCH. 415 J esus, should die, rather than the whole people : ” but now he does not say rather than but for (in behalf of) the people ; which properly signifies for the salvation of the people y that He may save the people : and although Caiaphas did not understand this, much less intend it, yet it being wonderfully suggested by the Holy Spirit, S. John here takes notice of it; and as he takes notice of it, so other sincere and honest men who were listening to Caiaphas might have noticed the same thing ; and just so may we. Learn from this the great care which God has of His Church, and how He assists the Pontiff who is her head, especially under the new Law, which Christ her Head and Spouse instituted, sanctioned, and rules, lest at any time the Church which is His bride should go astray from the true faith. Further, because Caiaphas did not understand this mystery he was not properly a prophet; and Origen observes that the Holy Ghost spoke through his mouth as the angel spoke to the disobedient Balaam by the mouth of the ass (Numb, xxii.) Caiaphas, then, most wickedly twisted the words of the Holy Spirit to the death of Christ. Wherefore S. Chrysostom says that the Holy Spirit moved the tongue of Caiaphas, not his heart. You will say, Then Caiaphas here erred in the faith. I reply by denying the consequence. Yea he formally declared the true faith, namely, that it was expedient that Christ should die for the salvation of the world, as I have said. And though it be that he himself did not understand this, nor mean to say it — for he intended that Christ should be cut off lest, because of Him, the people (of the Jews) should be destroyed by the Romans — yet herein was his error contrary to justice and piety, and not in a matter pertaining to the faith. His error had to do with a political question, whether, namely, Christ should be put to death for the State, or not Besides, the Jewish High Priest had not that infallible assistance of the Holy Ghost which the Christian High Priests have from Christ and after Christ It is, moreover, especially to be borne in mind that at that time, Christ being come, the Jewish Synagogue was beginning to fall, and Cnrist’s Church to rise up in its place. For shortly after this Digitized by V^rOOQie 416 Caiaphas with the whole council of the Sanhedrim proclaimed Jesus to be guilty of death as a false Messiah. This was an error in the Faith. Wherefore their Synagogue then ceased to be the Church of God, and began to be the synagogue of Satan which denied and slew the Christ which was sent by God. *