Luke 13:2 — Community Reflections

LUKE 13:2 — KING JAMES VERSION 0

“And Jesus answering said unto them, Suppose ye that these Galileans were sinners above all the Galileans, because they suffered such things?”

Jesus refuses to answer the theodicy question about the specific victims and redirects it to universal mortality: the Galileans' sudden death is not evidence of special guilt but of the universal urgency to repent before death arrives unexpectedly. The same logic will apply to the Tower of Siloam's victims — two examples together covering both political atrocity and structural accident to show that neither explains the past so much as urges the present.

Church Fathers on Luke 13:2

As He had been speaking of the punishments of sinners, the story is fitly told Him of the punishment of certain particular sinners, from which He takes occasion to denounce vengeance also against other sinners: as it is said, There were present at that season some that told him of the Galileans, whose blood Pilate had mingled with their sacrifices.
Gloss (Glossa Ordinaria) · medieval compilation

For these were followers of the opinions of Judas of Galilee, of whom Luke makes mention in the Acts of the Apostles, who said, that we ought to call no man master. Great numbers of them refusing to acknowledge Caesar as their master, were therefore punished by Pilate. They said also that men ought not to offer God any sacrifices that were not ordained in the law of Moses, and so forbade to offer the sacrifices appointed by the people for the safety of the Emperor and the…
Cyril of Alexandria · 5th century

For God punishes some sinners by cutting off their iniquities, and appointing to them hereafter a lighter punishment, or perhaps even entirely releasing them, and correcting those who are living in wickedness by their punishment. Again, he does not punish others, that if they take heed to themselves by repentance they may escape both the present penalty and future punishment, but if they continue in their sins, suffer still greater torment. TITUS BOST. And he here plainly…
Chrysostom · 4th century

Read all 10 entries in the readerCatena Aurea · St. Thomas Aquinas, tr. J. H. Newman · public domain

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