Thomas Aquinas Commentary John 2:18-25

"The Jews therefore answered and said unto him, What sign showest thou unto us, seeing that thou doest these things? Jesus answered and said unto them, Destroy this temple, and in three days I will raise it up. The Jews therefore said, Forty and six years was this temple in building, and wilt thou raise it up in three days? But he spake of the temple of his body. When therefore he was raised from the dead, his disciples remembered that he spake this; and they believed the scripture, and the word which Jesus had said. Now when he was in Jerusalem at the passover, during the feast, many believed on his name, beholding his signs which he did. But Jesus did not trust himself unto them, for that he knew all men, and because he needed not that any one should bear witness concerning man; for he himself knew what was in man." — John 2:18-25 (ASV)

1. Having explained the occasion for showing the sign, the Evangelist then states the sign that would be given. He does this in a structured way:

   1. First, he gives the sign.
   2. Second, he mentions the fruit of the signs Christ performed, at when he was at Jerusalem during the Passover.

   Regarding the first point, he does three things:

   1. First, the request for the sign is given.
   2. Second, the sign itself is given, at Jesus answered and said to them: destroy this temple.
   3. Third, the way the sign was understood is explained, at the Jews then said: this temple was built in forty-six years.

2. The Jews ask for a sign, which the Evangelist records: the Jews, therefore, answered and said to him: what sign can you show us, because you do these things?

3. Here we should note that when Jesus drove the merchants out of the temple, two things could be considered in Christ: his righteousness and zeal, which relate to virtue; and his power or authority. It was not appropriate to ask for a sign from Christ concerning the virtue and zeal with which he acted, since everyone may lawfully act according to virtue. However, he could be required to give a sign concerning his authority for driving them out of the temple, since it is not lawful for anyone to do this unless he has the authority.

   And so the Jews, not questioning his zeal and virtue, ask for a sign of his authority. They say, what sign can you show us, because you do these things?—that is, why do you drive us out with such power and authority, for this does not seem to be your office? They say the same thing elsewhere: by what authority are you doing these things? (Matthew 21:23).

4. The reason they ask for a sign is that it was customary for Jews to require one, since they were called to the law by signs: there did not arise again in Israel a prophet like Moses, whom the Lord knew face to face, with all his signs and wonders (Deuteronomy 34:10), and the Jews require signs (1 Corinthians 1:22). For this reason, David complains on behalf of the Jews, saying: we have not seen our signs (Psalms 74:9).

   However, they asked him for a sign not in order to believe, but in the hope that he would not be able to provide one, so they could then hinder and restrain him. And so, because they asked with evil intent, he did not give them an obvious sign, but one veiled in a symbol—a sign concerning the resurrection.

5. Therefore it says, Jesus answered and said to them: destroy this temple, and in three days I will raise it up. Here he gives the sign for which they asked.

   He gives them the sign of his future resurrection because this most powerfully shows the power of his divinity, for it is not within the power of a mere man to raise himself from the dead. Christ alone, who was free among the dead, did this by the power of his divinity. He shows them a similar sign elsewhere: an evil and adulterous generation asks for a sign. And a sign will not be given it, except the sign of Jonah the prophet (Matthew 12:39). And although he gave a hidden and symbolic sign on both occasions, the first was stated more clearly, and the second more obscurely.

6. We should note that before the incarnation, God gave a sign of the incarnation to come: the Lord himself will give you a sign. A virgin will conceive, and give birth to a son (Isaiah 7:14). Similarly, before the resurrection, he gave a sign of the resurrection to come. He did this because it is especially through these two events that the power of the divinity in Christ is demonstrated. For nothing more marvelous could be done than for God to become man and for Christ’s humanity to share in divine immortality after his resurrection: Christ, rising from the dead, will not die again . . . his life is life with God (Romans 6:9), that is, in a likeness to God.

7. We should note the words Christ used in giving this sign. He calls his body a temple, because a temple is something in which God dwells, according to the Lord is in his holy temple (Psalms 11:4). For this reason, a holy soul, in which God dwells, is also called a temple of God: the temple of God is holy, and that is what you are (1 Corinthians 3:17). Therefore, because the divinity dwells in the body of Christ, the body of Christ is the temple of God, not only with respect to the soul but also with respect to the body: in him all the fullness of the divinity dwells bodily (Colossians 2:9).

   God dwells in us by grace—that is, according to an act of the intellect and will, which is an act of the soul alone, not the body. But he dwells in Christ according to a union in the person, and this union includes not only the soul but the body as well. And so the very body of Christ is God’s temple.

8. But Nestorius, using this text in support of his error, claimed that the Word of God was joined to human nature only by an indwelling, from which it follows that the person of God is distinct from that of man in Christ.

   Therefore, it is important to insist that God’s indwelling in Christ refers to the nature, since in Christ human nature is distinct from the divine, and not to the person, which in the case of Christ is the same for both God and man—that is, the person of the Word, as was said above.

9. Therefore, granting this, the Lord does two things with respect to this sign:

   1. First, he foretells his future death.
   2. Second, his resurrection.

10. Christ foretells his own death when he says, destroy this temple. For Christ died and was killed by others—and they will kill him (Matthew 17:23)—yet with him willing it, because as is said: he was offered because it was his own will (Isaiah 53:7). And so he says, destroy this temple, that is, my body.

    He does not say that it will be destroyed, so that you do not think he killed himself. He says, destroy, which is not a command but a prediction and a permission. It is a prediction, so that the sense is, destroy this temple, meaning, "you will destroy." And it is a permission, so that the sense is, destroy this temple, meaning, "do with my body what you will; I submit it to you." As he said to Judas, that which you do, do quickly (John 13:27), not as commanding him, but as abandoning himself to his decision.

    He says destroy, because the death of Christ is the dissolution of his body, but in a way different from that of other men. For the bodies of other men are destroyed by death even to the point of returning to dust and ashes. But such a dissolution did not take place in Christ, for it is said: you will not allow your Holy One to see corruption (Psalms 16:10). Nevertheless, death did bring a dissolution to Christ, because his soul was separated from his body as a form from matter, his blood was separated from his body, and his body was pierced with nails and a lance.

11. He foretells his resurrection when he says, and in three days I will raise it up, that is, his body; I will raise it from the dead.

    He does not say, "I will be raised up," or "the Father will raise it up," but I will raise it up, to show that he would rise from the dead by his own power. Yet we do not deny that the Father raised him from the dead, because as it is said: who raised Jesus from the dead (Romans 8:11); and O Lord, have pity on me, and raise me up (Psalms 41:10). And so God the Father raised Christ from the dead, and Christ arose by his own power: I have slept and have taken my rest, and I have risen, because the Lord has taken me (Psalms 3:5). There is no contradiction in this, because the power of both is the same; therefore, whatever the Father does, these the Son also does in like manner (John 5:19). For if the Father raised him up, so too did the Son: although he was crucified through weakness, he lives through the power of God (2 Corinthians 13:4).

12. He says, in three days, and not "after three days," because he did not remain in the tomb for three complete days. As Augustine says, he is employing synecdoche, in which a part is taken for the whole.

    Origen, however, assigns a mystical reason for this expression. He says that the true body of Christ is the temple of God, and this body symbolizes the mystical body, that is, the Church: you are the body of Christ and members of member (1 Corinthians 12:27). And as the divinity dwells in the body of Christ through the grace of union, so too he dwells in the Church through the grace of adoption. Although that body may seem to be destroyed mystically by the hardships of persecutions with which it is afflicted, it is nevertheless raised up in three days: namely, in the day of the law of nature, the day of the written law, and the day of the law of grace. In those days a part of that body was destroyed, while another still lived. And so he says, in three days, because the spiritual resurrection of this body is accomplished in three days. But after those three days we will be perfectly risen, not only with respect to the first resurrection, but also the second: happy are they who share in the second resurrection (Revelation 20:6).

13. Then when he says, the Jews then said: this temple was built in forty-six years, we have the interpretation of the sign he gave.

    1. First, the false interpretation of the Jews.
    2. Second, its true understanding by the apostles, at but he spoke of the temple of his body.

14. The interpretation of the Jews was false because they believed that Christ was speaking of the material temple in which he then was. Therefore, they answer according to this interpretation and say: this temple was built in forty-six years, that is, this material temple in which we are standing, and you will raise it up in three days?

15. There is a literal objection to this. For the temple in Jerusalem was built by Solomon, and it is recorded that it was completed by him in seven years (1 Kings 6:38). How then can it be said that this temple was built in forty-six years?

    I answer that according to some, this is not to be understood of the very first temple, which was completed by Solomon in seven years, for that temple was destroyed by Nebuchadnezzar. Rather, it is to be understood of the temple rebuilt under Zerubbabel after the return from captivity (Ezra 5:2). However, this rebuilding was so hindered and delayed by the frequent attacks of their enemies on all sides that the temple was not finished until forty-six years had passed.

16. Or it could be said, according to Origen, that they were speaking of Solomon’s temple. It did take forty-six years to build if the time is calculated from the day when David first spoke of building a temple, discussing it with Nathan the prophet (2 Samuel 7:2), until its final completion under Solomon. For from that first day onward, David began preparing the material and the things necessary for building the temple. Accordingly, if the time in question is carefully calculated, it will add up to forty-six years.

17. But although the Jews referred their interpretation to the material temple, according to Augustine, it can be referred to the temple of Christ’s body. As he says in The Book of Eighty-three Questions, the conception and formation of the human body is completed in forty-five days in the following manner. During the first six days, the conception of a human body has a likeness to milk; during the next nine days, it is converted into blood; then in the next twelve days, it is hardened into flesh; then the remaining eighteen days, it is formed into a perfect outlining of all the members. If we add six, nine, twelve, and eighteen, the number forty-five arises; and if we add one for the sacrament of unity, we get forty-six.

18. However, a question arises about this, because this process of formation does not seem to have taken place in Christ, who was formed and animated at the very instant of conception.

    But one may answer that although there was something unique in the formation of Christ’s body—in that it was perfect at that instant with respect to the outlining of its members—it was not perfect with respect to the quantity due the body. So he remained in the Virgin’s womb until he attained the proper quantity. However, let us take the above numbers and select six, which was the first, and forty-six, which was the last, and let us multiply one by the other. The result is two hundred seventy-six.

    Now if we assemble these days into months, allotting thirty days to a month, we get nine months and six days. Thus it was correct to say that it took forty-six years to build the temple, which signifies the body of Christ. The suggestion is that there were as many years in building the temple as there were days in perfecting the body of Christ. For from March twenty-five, when Christ was conceived and (as is believed) when he suffered, to December twenty-five, there are this number of days—namely, two hundred seventy-six, which is the result of multiplying forty-six by six.

19. Augustine (as is clear from the Gloss) has another mystical interpretation of this number. He says that if one adds the letters in the name Adam, using for each the number it represented for the Greeks, the result is forty-six. For in Greek, A represents the number one, since it is the first letter of the alphabet. According to this order, D is four. Adding to the sum of these another one for the second A and forty for the letter M, we have forty-six. This signifies that the body of Christ was derived from the body of Adam.

    Again, according to the Greeks, the name Adam is composed of the first letters of the names of the four directions of the world: namely, Anathole (east), Disis (west), Arctos (north), and Mensembria (south). This signifies that Christ derived his flesh from Adam in order to gather his elect from the four parts of the world: he will gather his elect from the four winds (Matthew 24:31).

20. Then, the true interpretation of this sign as understood by the apostles is given, at but he spoke of the temple of his body.

    1. First, the way they understood it is given.
    2. Second, the time when they understood it, at when, therefore, he had risen from the dead.

21. He says therefore: the Jews said this out of ignorance. But Christ did not understand it in their way; in fact, he meant the temple of his body, and this is what he says: but he spoke of the temple of his body. We have already explained why the body of Christ could be called a temple.

    Apollinaris misunderstood this and said that the body of Christ was inanimate matter because the temple was inanimate. He was mistaken in this, for when it is said that the body of Christ is a temple, one is speaking metaphorically. In a metaphor, the likeness does not apply in every respect, but only in some respect—namely, with respect to the indwelling, which refers to the nature, as was explained. Furthermore, this is evident from the authority of Sacred Scripture, when Christ himself said: I have the power to lay it down (John 10:18).

22. The time when the apostles acquired this true understanding is then shown by the Evangelist when he says, when, therefore, he had risen from the dead, his disciples remembered that he had said this. This is for two reasons. First, because this statement asserted that the true divinity was in the body of Christ; otherwise, it could not be called a temple. To understand this at that time was beyond human ability. Second, because this statement mentions the passion and resurrection when he says, I will raise it up, which was something none of the disciples had heard mentioned before. Consequently, when Christ spoke of his passion and resurrection to the apostles, Peter was scandalized when he heard it, saying, God forbid, Lord (Matthew 16:22).

    But after the resurrection, when they now clearly understood that Christ was God through what he had shown regarding his passion and resurrection, and when they had learned of the mystery of his resurrection, his disciples remembered that he had said this of his body. They then believed the Scripture, that is, the prophets: he will revive us after two days; on the third day he will raise us up (Hosea 6:2), and Jonah was in the belly of the fish three days and three nights (Jonah 1:17). So it is that on the very day of the resurrection he opened their understanding so that they might understand the Scriptures and the statement Jesus had made: destroy this temple, and in three days I will raise it up.

23. In the anagogical sense, according to Origen, we understand by this that in the final resurrection of nature we will be disciples of Christ. In the great resurrection, the entire body of Jesus—that is, his Church—will be made certain of the things we now hold obscurely through faith. Then we shall receive the fulfillment of faith, seeing in reality what we now observe through a mirror.

24. Then at when he was at Jerusalem, he sets forth the fruit that resulted from the signs, namely, the conversion of certain believers.

    Concerning this he does three things:

    1. First, he mentions those who believed on account of the miracles.
    2. Second, he shows the attitude of Christ toward them, at but Jesus did not trust himself to them.
    3. Third, he gives the reason for this, at for he knew all men.

25. The fruit that developed from the signs of Jesus was abundant, because many believed and were converted to him. This is what he says: now when he was at Jerusalem during the Passover, upon the festival day, many believed in his name, seeing the signs that he did.

26. Note that people believed in two ways: some on account of the miracles they saw, and some on account of the revelation and prophecy of hidden things. Now those who believe on account of doctrine are more commendable because they are more spiritual than those who believe on account of signs, which are more tangible and on a sensory level. Those who were converted are shown to be more on a sensory level by the fact that they did not believe on account of the doctrine, as the disciples did, but seeing the signs that he did, believed in his name: prophecies are for those who believe (1 Corinthians 14:22).

27. One might ask which signs worked by Jesus they saw, for we do not read of any sign he worked in Jerusalem at that time.

    According to Origen, there are two answers to this. First, Jesus did work many miracles there at that time which are not recorded here. The Evangelist purposely omitted many of Christ’s miracles, since he worked so many that they could not easily be recorded: but there are also many other things which Jesus did; which, if every one of them was written, the world itself, I think, would not be able to contain the books that should be written (John 21:25). The Evangelist expressly shows this when he says, seeing the signs that he did, without mentioning them, because it was not his intention to record all the signs of Jesus, but as many as were needed to instruct the Church of the faithful.

    The second answer is that among the miracles, the greatest could be the sign in which Jesus by himself drove a crowd of men from the temple with a whip of small cords (John 2:15).

28. The attitude of Jesus toward those who believed in him is shown when he says, but Jesus did not trust himself to them, that is, to those who had believed in him.

    What is this? Men entrust themselves to God, and Jesus himself does not entrust himself to them? Could they kill him against his will? Some will say that he did not trust himself to them because he knew that their belief was not genuine. But if this were true, the Evangelist would surely not have said that many believed in his name, and yet he did not trust himself to them.

    According to Chrysostom, the reason is that they did believe in him, but imperfectly, because they were not yet able to attain to the profound mysteries of Christ. And so Jesus did not trust himself to them, that is, he did not yet reveal his secret mysteries to them. For there were many things he would not reveal even to the apostles: I have yet many things to say to you: but you cannot bear them now (John 16:12), and I could not speak to you as spiritual persons, but as sensual (1 Corinthians 3:1). To show that they believed imperfectly, it is significant that the Evangelist does not say that they believed "in him," because they did not yet believe in his divinity, but he says, in his name—that is, they believed what was said about him nominally, for instance, that he was just, or something of that sort.

    Or, according to Augustine, these people represent the catechumens in the Church, who, although they believe in the name of Christ, Jesus does not trust himself to them, because the Church does not give them the body of Christ. For just as no priest except one ordained in the priesthood can consecrate that body, so no one but a baptized person may receive it.

29. The reason Jesus did not trust himself to them arises from his perfect knowledge; hence he says, for he knew all men.

    For although one must ordinarily presume the best of everyone, yet after the truth about certain people is known, one should act according to their condition. Now because nothing in man was unknown to Christ, and since he knew that they believed imperfectly, he did not trust himself to them.

30. The universal knowledge of Christ is then described, for he knew not only those who were close to him, but strangers too. And therefore he says, for he knew all men, and this by the power of his divinity: the eyes of the Lord are far brighter than the sun . Now a man, although he may know other people, cannot have a sure knowledge of them, because he sees only what appears; consequently, he must rely on the testimony of others. But Christ knows with the greatest certainty, because he sees the heart, and so he did not need anyone to give testimony of man. In fact, he is the one who gives testimony: look, my witness is in heaven (Job 16:19).

    His knowledge was perfect because it extended not only to what was exterior, but even to the interior. Thus he says, he was well aware of what was in man’s heart, that is, the secrets of the heart: hell and destruction are open to the Lord: how much more the hearts of the children of men (Proverbs 15:11).