“Jesus answered, I have told you that I am he: if therefore ye seek me, let these go their way:”
Jesus answered, 'I told you that I am he. So if you are looking for me, let these men go.' — Jesus' condition for his surrender—the disciples' release—demonstrates his shepherd concern (10:11-18). "Let these men go" (aphete toutous hypagein) echoes the shepherd language: having claimed himself as the sheep's door, he ensures none are lost. This voluntary substitution prefigures the ransom logion and the one-for-many substitutionary atonement.
Church Fathers on John 18:8
The Evangelist had strewn how Judas had found, out the place where Christ was, now he relates how he went there. Judas then, having received a band of men and officers from the chief priests and Pharisees, comes there with lanterns and torched and weapons.
It was a band not of Jews, but of soldiers, granted, we must understand, by the Governor, with legal authority to take the criminal, as He was considered, and crush any opposition that might be made.
But how could they persuade the band? By hiring them; for being soldiers, they were ready to do anything for money.
Read all 15 entries in the readerCatena Aurea · St. Thomas Aquinas, tr. J. H. Newman · public domain
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