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What the Fathers say
Eastern Fathers
John Chrysostom
But the Jews, on the other hand, who swallowed the camel and strained at the gnat, having wrought so atrocious a deed, are very precise concerning the day. "Because it was the Preparation, that the bodies should not remain upon the cross - they besought Pilate that their legs might be broken." Seest thou how strong a thing is truth? By means of the very things which are the objects of their zeal, prophecy is fulfilled, for by occasion of those things, this plain prediction, unconnected with them, receives its accomplishment. …
Cyril of Alexandria
It is not with the motive of testifying to the reverence for holy days felt by men inured to shed blood with brutal ferocity, and found guilty of so monstrous an iniquity, that the blessed Evangelist says this; but rather from the wish to show that, in their gross stupidity, they committed that folly of which Christ spoke. …
Theophylact of Ohrid
But those who swallow a camel and strain out a gnat (Matt. 23:24), having committed so great a crime, show particular concern about the day. "For," he says, "so that the bodies would not remain on the cross, they asked Pilate," that is, they asked that they be taken down. So, they did not want to appear as avengers and murderers on the day of the feast. Otherwise: the law also commanded that the sun should not go down on a man's anger (Eph. 4:26). See how through the schemes of the Jews the prophecies are fulfilled. …
Western Saints
Augustine of Hippo
After that the Lord Jesus had accomplished all that He foreknew required accomplishment before His death, and had, when it pleased Himself, given up the ghost, what followed thereafter, as related by the evangelist, let us now consider. "The Jews therefore," he says, "because it was the preparation (parasceve), that the bodies should not remain upon the cross on the Sabbath-day (for that Sabbath-day was an high day), besought Pilate that their legs might be broken, and that they might be taken away." Not that their legs might be …
Bede
Parasceve is interpreted as preparation.… They called it this as the day when it was necessary that they prepare for the sabbath according to the command they had received concerning the manna, "On the sixth day you shall gather double, etc." … Therefore, because it was on the sixth day that human beings were made and the whole creation of the world completed, but on the seventh day it was required that he rested from his work and this is the sabbath, that is, rest—so it is only right to call that the day on which our Lord was …
Thomas Aquinas
2454 Now we see the piercing of Christ's body: the act itself; and then the certainty of what the Evangelist tells us (v 35). With respect to the first he does two things: first, we see the intervention and intention of the Jews; secondly, this is partially accomplished; thirdly, how this was accomplished with regard to Christ. …
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